UnBrotherly Love
by Chris Kenworthy
Summary: After Tess became Kyle's Valentine, the two of them face challenges balancing their romance and living under Jim Valenti's roof together - and things come to a head when the alien crystals are discovered in Frazier Woods.
1. Chapter 1

When Kyle Valenti and Tess Harding got home on the evening of February the fourteenth, it was nearly eleven o'clock. Kyle's father was reading at the dining room table, and he looked up and smiled when he heard them. "So, kids, how was your Valentine's day?"

Tess looked back and forth between the Valenti men, young and old, before answering. "A little bit confusing but good overall."

"I'll bet," Jim Valenti said mildly.

Again Tess alternated a thoughtful gaze between her foster father and the young man who was definitely _not_ a foster brother in her mind now. Something as yet unspoken occurred to her. "Did - did Kyle say anything to you about... about having a certain kind of feelings for me, Mister Valenti? Adult feelings, un-brotherly feelings?" She considered the second plain wooden chair at the table for a moment, but didn't sit down. "Particularly Valentin-ey feelings?"

"As it happened, he did," Jim said with a broad smile, as he placed a bookmark between the pages. "I hope that I gave him some good advice, and he encouraged me to try again with Amy DeLuca. She left about an hour ago, by the way, but I'm sure she'd want me to pass on her best wishes, and possibly even thanks for clearing out and letting the two of us have our own comfy Valentine's evening here."

Tess' eyes narrowed slightly. "And I told you about how I was planning a special Valentine's dinner for Kyle, with Isabel."

"You did?" Kyle exclaimed, as his father nodded calm acceptance. "So - you could see the entire misunderstanding, you knew exactly how the two of us were on different pages. Why didn't you say something?"

There was a long pause. "Well, I suppose I didn't feel it was my place to get involved, that the two of you might well work it out between yourselves if I didn't get involved. After all, Kyle, you certainly wouldn't have been happy with me if I'd let slip the fact of your... affections for Tess, if she didn't actually feel the same way. And if I'd told you that Tess was actually setting you up with another woman... how do you think that you would have reacted? Would you have still gone to the Pisces cafe tonight?"

"Hmm." Kyle sat down, looked around, and immediately got up and left the room. While he was gone, Jim and Tess exchanged a look, and after a minute or so Kyle returned, pushing a wheeled desk chair up to the table. Tess flashed him a brilliant smile as she sat down in the third chair.

"So, well, we did manage to talk things out," Tess told him, "and that worked pretty well. And come to think of it, now that you know about that, there are at least a few things that we're going to have to sort out."

"Ground rules, you mean?" Jim asked. Tess nodded. "Right. I've been thinking about that a little. It certainly wasn't what I expected would happen, when I took you in, that the two of you would end up as a couple or anything. But we're going to have to deal with the realities of now, and it looks as if, for the time being at least, those don't involve you leaving this household, Tess. I did actually bring the subject up with Amy, but she doesn't think it would be the best thing for you and Maria, and I can see her point. And in any event, I can't think of anybody who has the room for you and is also - aware of the complications of your situation. Sending you off with anybody who's unaware of the alien connection sounds like a very bad idea."

"I could go and find a place to live by myself," Tess offered. "Like Michael did."

"Only if you take the same route of legal emancipation that Michael did," Jim told her sternly. "That's a choice that I can't talk you out of, but it's a harder road that he makes it look, and might also serve to draw more attention to you. Nor would it be as short a road for you to travel."

"So, Tess is sticking around for the time being," Kyle said. "Do you have rules that you want to be handing down, considering that?"

" I guess that I do," Jim said, smiling. "I even went looking online, to see if I could find anything to help warn me what the possible problems were. Did you know that there's a support website for parents whose teenaged children and stepchildren are dating? That doesn't exactly cover you, Tess, but it's close enough to the overall situation to be somewhat helpful."

"I guess," Kyle said warily. "So what does the support website say?"

"Well, it's not something that they said, as such, but... as tempting as it might be considering our space constraints, I'd like to start by saying that I don't want the two of you sleeping in the same place through the night. That just seems like it might be much too much intimacy for an early stage of your relationship, and lead to awkwardness for - well, for all three of us, including me."

Kyle and Tess traded a look. "I have to say, I didn't expect you to bring it up that way," Kyle said softly, "but it probably makes sense. Aren't you going to say something about the two of us... well, using a bed together in a way that's _not_ all through the night?"

Tess laughed, and Jim paused before shaking his head. "No, I - well, I never really wanted to be that kind of father, trying to lay down the law about my kid's developing sexuality. I don't want to push either of you into anything you're not ready for, of course, but I do think that you're mature enough to figure those things out for yourselves, and come to me if you need an honest and mature opinion or have questions that you think I can help with. As above, under awkwardness, though, I'd ask that you try to be discrete about whatever is going on between you in that respect - so that I can ignore it and pretend that it isn't happening, if I have to."

"Well, that's more than fair," Tess told him. "It's fine by me - I'll certainly be doing my best to control any lustful appetites and take this thing on the slow side - and to make sure to be responsible, when it does come to something like that, so that there aren't any consequences that you'll need to help us deal with. Right, Kyle?"

"Yeah, that's an arrangement I can live with - well, I'm not wild about taking things slow and unlusty for a long time - but I'll be able to cope." Kyle looked around the room as if he hoped to find a new topic of conversation on the wall. "Since you mentioned her vaguely, how did the Valentine's festivities go here between yourself and Miz DeLuca?"

"Quite well. Not much chance that there'll be wedding bells soon, but we've made a date for next weekend."

"Wedding bells?" Tess repeated. "Now isn't that a picture, all five of us, six if you count Cousin Sean, moving into the same house. Whose would you pick? Neither of your places really has much space."

"No, I suppose not," Jim told her. "And there's no real reason to speculate about such choices right now, is there?" He got up. "I'm going to retire for the night. Remember, kids - discretion is the watchword."

"Is that it for tonight?" Kyle asked. "Don't stay in the same bed all night, and be discreet?"

"Why not?" Jim asked him. "Between that and the maturity that Tess has shown me in her attitude, I don't think that I'll need to worry about anything else yet. Goodnight." And he picked up his book from the table, waved, and headed over towards the bedrooms.

"So..." Kyle started once the door had closed behind him. "Just how slow do we have to take things? You do know that it's cruel to the male of any species to be stimulated and then - deprived."

"Biology can be nearly as tough on girls," Tess told him. "Don't act like I have it all entirely easy. As far as tonight, I see two options. Either we stand pat and avoid over-stimulating any more..." She trailed off and stood up, and Kyle couldn't help but follow the way her body moved with his eyes as her short but shapely limbs stretched out. "Or we just take things as they come, trying our best not to lose control."

"Hmm... a bit of a dilemma, but my brain's saying 'what the hell, go for it!'" Kyle admitted.

"So is mine... well, at least, so is a part of me. I can't entirely be sure that it's my brain." But Tess stepped close to him, and Kyle rose to meet her, their lips coming together as if they'd been built to be heat-seeking. Somehow, both teenagers managed to find themselves on the bed in Tess' room before that first kiss ended.

#

Somehow news had spread of three gossip-worthy Valentine's Day hook-ups by the next Monday morning at West Roswell high. Max Evans and Liz Parker were finally back 'on again', something like nine months after Max showed up alone to the sophomore Spring Fling. Kyle Valenti had been spotted at the Pisces Cafe with both Isabel Evans and Tess Harding, though apparently he abandoned Isabel and ran off to find Tess and persuade her to come to dinner with him. Most of the girls and many boys were surprised or amazed that Kyle and Tess were dating, considering her status as his unofficial foster sister, but most of Kyle's sporting buddies just chuckled and said that they'd been waiting on this news for months.

It was the news of Markos Smith and the Whits playing an impromptu concert outside Pam Troy's house that really had the most people talking - and the news that the stunt had apparently earned Markos a place in Pam's heart, at least for the time being. "Which shows that she has one, apparently" Maria DeLuca mentioned when Vicky Delaney asked her about the show. "Of some sort. But no, Alex and the guys didn't ask me to stand in for that gig. I'm not sure what I'd have said if they did, but I wish Markos the best."

#

Kyle looked into the little mirror mounted on the handlebar of his bike, just to check that he wasn't leaving Tess too far behind. He gasped when he realized that she was catching up on him.

And then, a few seconds later, he realized that he was getting a stitch in his side. Not a really bad or painful thing. Just a little cramp that was making it hard for him to pedal at full tilt.

Even though he knew that sometimes little things hit like that without much rhyme or reason, a part of Kyle did feel that it was ridiculous that he was the one who was cramping up, the Buddhist jock with letters in three sports, while a girl who'd never shown that much interest in physical exertion was cruising along without showing any problems.

When there was a good opportunity and the narrow winding trace opened up into a broad and straight path for half a mile, she pulled up alongside his bike. "Valenti, are you letting me catch up so that I'll feel better?" she asked, her voice breathy but loud enough to ring in the empty desert.

"What? No, not at all," Kyle said, caught by surprise enough that he didn't sound particularly convincing, even though his denial was completely honest. (Did he maybe not _want_ to be completely convincing?)

Tess stole a quick glance at him through the safety goggles that she was wearing in case they drove through a cloud of dust at a critical moment. Kyle was wearing an identical pair. "Do you wanna stop here for a moment?"

A part of Kyle was tempted, especially since the stitch seemed to be getting worse, but his inner macho could not abide that. "Hell no, game on."

"Alright, then catch me if you can!" As the path curved into a narrow trace to their left, Tess pulled ahead to take the turn before he did, and for a while Kyle was able to follow at a safe distance. Then he had to fall behind just a bit, and of course that was the moment that Tess was seized by the desire to take a branch off the main trail.

"Oh, no," Kyle muttered, too out of breath to risk a louder exclamation. He couldn't hang back or stay on the proper bike trail himself - promising little side turnings like the one Tess had just ridden down could turn dangerous or even peter out abruptly into unrideable rocks, and it would be hard for them to find each other once she was out of sight. If he could count on Tess to stop and turn back once she couldn't see him in her rear view... but if she'd disregarded his cautions about staying on the true path, then he couldn't depend on the rest.

So he took the same turn, and did his best to keep up with Tess through the much tougher slopes and turnings of her new track, (though there were two jumps that were really kind of fun. He noticed that there was a pole not too far away from the track, a steel thing about an inch and a half thick driven into the ground, and was wondering if he'd ever seen such a thing before when Tess rocketed past it.

And while Kyle was distracted by the pole, a tall guy with dark hair, wearing blue jeans, stepped out from where he'd been standing behind a rock high enough to conceal him, and Kyle only had a split second to realize that they were on collision course. His arm and leg connected with the man's front, and both of them tumbled, Kyle wiping out on the bike, the man crumpling backward and dropping something that he had been holding.

By the time Kyle had gotten free of the bike and was inspecting it for damage, Tess had already circled back and was approaching the scene of the accident. "Oh, I'm so sorry mister," she called back. "It was my fault, we weren't supposed to be riding up here, and my boyfriend was only... Grant Sorenson?"

Sure enough, the guy who had picked himself up and was starting to collect his broken fragments was vaguely familiar to Kyle, and the name made some connection, though he couldn't immediately recall when he had seen the infamous geologist in person. Grant didn't pay any attention to Tess yet, but was staring daggers at Kyle - or possibly death ray eyes worthy of Tess' threats to him when she first moved into his house.

"Like father, like son," Grant said, pronouncing each word with the same level of bitterness. "You all get into the act of ruining my equipment."

"Hey... I'm really sorry," Kyle muttered. "I - I didn't see you, and that's a good reason why we shouldn't have been biking off the usual trail." He couldn't resist shooting a glance over at Tess, but didn't blame her overtly - she had taken responsibility, after all, and Grant had pretended not to notice. "Was that an expensive gizmo?"

"It's not about the money," Grant insisted. "I'm just really tired of being harassed by Valentis day after day after day." Kyle knew that it had been two weeks since his father and Grant Sorenson had crossed paths, but didn't bring up that factoid. "Maybe it'd be fun to spend my days harassing you kids instead, if I can't get any decent work done. Does that sound fun to you, Valenti Junior? Not being able to go anywhere with your pretty girlfriend, because I'd show up and do whatever I could to ruin your fun?"

"I wouldn't be happy about that, no," Kyle admitted. "I can understand if you're not happy about seeing us here, but maybe the best way of dealing is to steer clear of each other as much as possible."

"Or else what?" Grant taunted. "And I recognize your girl now - Tess, right? The one who skipped out on Isabel's birthday party. That was the first time your Dad violated my rights, wasn't it Kyle? He thought that something bad had happened to Tess, so he broke into my room, questioned me, and threatened me with a gun."

"Something bad **did** happen to me," Tess spat back. "I was held captive and beaten in the old power plant. I'm sorry that you were under suspicion; it didn't have anything to do with you, but I'm not sorry that Mister Valenti was following evert lead he could. You were the last person to see me before I was taken."

"Really? Did he catch the person who 'captured' you?" Grant asked. "How did you get out safely that night?" Tess hesitated a long time without replying. "Yeah, I didn't think you'd have an answer for that one. Here's another big question - aren't you living under the Valenti's roof now, Tess? He took you in when your father skipped town. Was the deal that you'd be Junior's love toy from the beginning? Or did he only just wake up to the possibilities of having a gorgeous teenage blonde living in the next room? God, the whole thing is so white trash it makes me thoroughly sick."

"Still, I don't see how it's your business that we're dating," Tess said. "And, on that note... I think that we should go and leave you to your work."

"Alright," Grant told them guardedly. "But don't think that's the end of it. I've still got a score to settle against your family, Valenti."

"Is that bike alright, Kyle?" Tess asked him nervously. He checked, and realized that the front wheel was very slightly bent.

"It'll be okay for a bit," he said. Once they were away from Grant, she should be able to use her powers to help him straighten the metal.

"Alright, let's ride." Tess got back onto her bike and they rode away, with Grant watching until the two of them were out of sight.

"Okay, let's talk about something other than Mister Sorenson," Kyle suggested as Tess started to spin the bent wheel in the air. He could tell that she was still upset by the scene.

"Not just yet, please, I'm concentrating," she asked, and Kyle kept silent. "Okay, does that look okay?"

"Yeah, I guess." Kyle started to walk the bike back and forth. It seemed okay, but he wasn't really eager to get back onto the trail when the two of them could be talking. "So, tell me - how is it you're in such good shape? I don't think that's an automatic hybrid thing, based on having to dash away from danger with Evans and Guerin a few times."

"No, we have the potential for athleticism, but it won't come if we don't work at it," Tess confirmed. "Ed - he got me into the habit of exercising early. Like anything else that might make the difference when it came to FBI special unit agents trying to catch us - or evil aliens trying to kill me, for that matter, though he never mentioned that possibility until the end was near. I've kept up with my aerobics sessions since he's been gone."

"How?" Kyle asked. "I never noticed."

"You don't notice much that I don't want you to see," she admitted. "Didn't you ever what I was doing when I came into school early with you, the days that you had team sports practice? There's nobody else in the little room with the stationary bikes and treadmills then, except me. Or sometimes I go back to the school building after dinnertime."

"Doesn't anybody ever catch you at it?" Kyle marveled.

"PTA people and the gymnastics coach a few times, not that any of them really cared." They were both walking their bikes down the track at a brisk pace now, but Tess seemed happy enough to talk. She seemed to be looking around for anybody else who might get close enough to hear their words, though. "You're right that Max and Michael never bother cardio training. I tried to talk Michael into it over the summer, but he didn't stick with it. He likes weight training, though - Michael can probably bench press more than you now. And Isabel's coming along with her jogging. She can finish a 3200 meter run in fifteen minutes now, and she's increasing her endurance for longer distances."

"Huh," Kyle muttered, impressed by the statistic. "I don't suppose there's any chance of you girls trying out for the track team?"

"I don't think so," Tess admitted. "Not the best way to avoid attracting attention. So, what now?"

"Well, we can get back on the bikes," Kyle said. "And - I'd like to take you out to dinner sometime soon, today or tomorrow."

"Yeah, you'd like that - as a way to dare Grant Sorenson to try something," she scolded him playfully.

"Hey, I don't want to back down from a bully like that," Kyle said. "I did the pacifist thing today, if you didn't notice - I really wanted to clock him one, but I'm not going to just let him walk over us."

"That might get tricky," Tess admitted. "It sounds like he's made up his mind to be provocative, and he'd love to press charges with Mister Hanson if you actually do take a swing at him." She sighed. "Let's not worry about Grant any more right now, huh?"

I wasn't the one who brought him up," Kyle pointed out. "Of course I'm happy to leave him behind as a topic. In fact, why don't we leave conversation behind for a while, huh?" They had just gotten to the point where Tess took them off the bike trail, and Kyle got up onto his bike again.

"Okay, but just to be clear, is there a rule that I can't pass you now?" Tess asked. Kyle shot her a look, and she burst out laughing. So he took off before she could catch her breath.

#

"Oh, no, there he is," Tess muttered. "Maybe the sidewalk patio table was tempting fate too much."

Kyle took his attention away from steak, mushrooms, spaghetti, and tomato sauce to take one quick look over his shoulder. Sure enough, Grant Sorenson was heading towards them, through the last of the fading twilight, and the orange streetlights on Second Avenue. "Oh, what the heck, it's been worth it so far, hasn't it?" he asked. The weather was neither warm nor cold on this February New Mexico evening, and Kyle had dressed up in a nice blue sweater, while Tess had a red and white embroidered wrap tight around her shoulders. And the food at the Spaghetti Hut was always great.

"That depends on how much the final cost comes out to be," Tess muttered darkly. Kyle shrugged and made a point of not turning to look back behind him again, though he couldn't eat for concentrating on steps coming up behind him, no matter how much he tried.

And then he realized that Tess was staring off to the side. Okay, so Grant was walking around the patio - that made sense. It wasn't his style to jump over the little white fence, wrought iron or whatever it was. He'd use the front entrance for people going inside the restaurant to get their tables.

Except that he didn't.

Tess' head continued to turn to the side, and eventually Kyle realized that he could see Grant Sorenson passing them by. But Grant wasn't looking where he was going - his head was pointed at the two of them, and an inhumanly cold smile was on his face, until he was just about to get to the 'full-on Exorcist twist,' and then he turned away from them, not looking back.

"Okay, how high did that rate on your creep factor?" Kyle asked.

"Hmm... nothing off the scale, considering what else I've seen... but still respectable. Call it an eight point one, with extra marks for effort and ingenuity."

"Right." Kyle realized that this was not exactly the date night conversation he wanted to be having, especially if it might be reminding Tess of some of the things that she'd seen before. If Grant Sorenson's mischief had passed them by for tonight, then they should celebrate, instead of dwelling on what the future might bring - which would be playing into his plans, considering that the only possible reason for that smile-by was to psych them out. "So what's up next for you, aside from spending time with your brand-new Valentine? We live in the same house, but I don't know as much as I'd like to about your life."

"Are you really sure that you do want to know?" Tess asked. Kyle understood what she meant - he'd told her that he wanted to be left out of 'the alien stuff' on more than one occasion, and the alien stuff was a huge part of her life. But...

"Yeah, actually I am. I didn't quite realize what I was getting myself in for when I made that Valentine's pact with Liz, but I'm committed to this thing one hundred percent now. Whatever's going on with you - well, I want to be a part of it, if I can, and if you're ready to let me in that much."

"Okay, hold up, just a second, what pact is this?" Tess demanded hotly, and Kyle looked back down to his plate, unable to meet her gaze, so he focused on the meat instead.

"Umm, it's a funny story. Actually, I guess I thought that somebody had already mentioned it, when we met up with Max and Liz that evening."

"No, I don't think so - details, please?" Tess insisted. Kyle took another bite and made a production of chewing it. "Does this have something to do with the night last fall, when - when you and Liz..."

Kyle almost blurted out a denial, but managed to finish swallowing the food first. "No - well, only a little bit, since that was part of my motivation, but - let's see." He tried to figure out the best way of explaining to Tess. "It started just a few days ago, really - I ran into Liz at school early in the morning, caught her spying on Max. And - well, she was so obviously pining over him, and it got me thinking about things. I proposed the pact, it was that she would try to get Max back, and I'd... try to get you to be my Valentine. A bit like a mutual Valentine's day resolution, to take chances on love."

"And a bit like you were distracting me for Liz's sake," Tess pointed out, pushing pieces of stuffed cannelloni around on her plate without showing that much interest in them. "Because I'd put up a fight if I thought that Liz was getting close to Max again, not that he was really mine to fight for, except inside my head."

"Yeah, that was just a little part of the point," Kyle allowed.

"I think I remember that morning - I mean, I didn't know that you'd been talking to Liz. But you met me at my locker after coming to school for early practice and then finding that it had been cancelled. It was raining, and you were acting kind of weird."

"Yes, it was, and yes I probably was," Kyle agreed. "Any other questions?" Tess considered for a few seconds, and then shook her head. "So what's going on in your life that you didn't think that I'd want to hear about? I think that we've gotten sidetracked from that long enough."

"Okay, well... you remember that girl, with the grandfather who looked like Michael?" Tess leaned over the table so that she could whisper, and her eyes glinted when she realized that the pose was offering a tiny peek down the front of her blouse and Kyle had to decide if he was going to keep eye contact or take a look. With effort, he managed to keep staring into her bright blue eyes, though even the peripheral vision made his pulse pound.

"Yeah," Kyle whispered back. "Laurie Dupree, the one that Dad saved from some crazy out in the woods - and the Council fired him over it, because he couldn't explain how he knew that she was down there."

"There's a bit more to it than that," Tess reminded him. "But yeah, her. We don't know what it is, but it looks like that FBI agent is going to be doing something about her. We don't know what, but Isabel and Michael want to start watching the Sheriff's station. Michael's even found a spot from some roof where anybody can see into the office that Agent Duff's been using - if they used binoculars, I mean."

"Well, that seems a little risky," Kyle pointed out. "You have a lot of people coming into and out of that building, and they're not all clueless. What if somebody is observant enough to spot the watcher?"

"Michael had an idea about that," Tess added. "There are a lot of other buildings in that block with the station. And the roof is pretty private. So he thought that whoever's on lookout duty should be going in pairs - one guy and girl."

"What good would that do?" Kyle couldn't help but ask.

"Well, if we do get caught, it might look like - like they're just two kids out for kicks, making out - and using the binoculars to see if they can spot somebody else doing what they shouldn't be doing. Michael's managed to get Maria to agree to go with him. What do you say?"

For a few seconds, Kyle's mind swam with what she had told him. "You had me at 'out for kicks,'" he told her finally, and chuckled.

"I thought so," Tess agreed. "Well, that's not for a little while at least, maybe tomorrow. What can we do for our kicks tonight, once dinner is gone?"

"I've got that one figured out," Kyle promised her. "Better eat up; I think we've both let our food get cold as we talked."

Tess grinned, and proceeded to work at clearing her plate.

#

Max fell in step with Kyle halfway through his eighth lap of the field track, and didn't say anything for a little while. "Is there something on your mind, Evans?" Kyle panted finally, slowing his pace down to a slow jog to free up a little breath.

It was hard to notice that Max was also much more comfortable with the slower pace, though Kyle hadn't seen him doing laps until just now. Yeah, your majesty, better start training for the next time bad guys start chasing you, he thought to himself.

"Tess mentioned that she wanted to go on - on surveillance duty with you," Max said. "I guess I just wanted to make sure that you were really okay with that, since - well, you seemed really upset about all of the alien business when your Dad lost his job."

"Yeah, I'm still bitter about that, but I've got some perspective," Kyle told him. "Isabel knew that somebody was in trouble, and felt she had no choice but to find out who and help her. You were just caught in the middle. And Dad - he made his own choices about how much he was going to risk for you guys, and for Laurie. If helping Tess keep an eye on Laurie means Dad's sacrifices count for something, then I'm good with that." He pushed into the turn, chuckling mentally as Max struggled to keep up. "I'm not clear on why the rear window bit is important, though - and didn't really want to ask Tess."

"It's all speculative at this point," Max said. "Agent Duff has been interrogating Laurie non-stop for over a day. Isabel is convinced that Laurie isn't coherent enough to tell Duff what she wants to know - so what is Duff going to do when her patience runs out? It would be good if we had some way to sneak into the station and actually listen in on the sessions, but that's too risky right now. We used a pretty flimsy excuse to get you inside, for instance, and your father won't be invited back. So watching is all we can do now."

"Got it," Kyle agreed. "Are you on the binocular schedule too?"

"Liz and I have already taken our turn," Max said, and when Kyle looked over he saw that Max was smiling. "Isabel hasn't gotten her chance, though. She asked Alex, and he said that he didn't think that it was a good idea. She was - a little upset about that."

"Yeah, I can imagine it," Kyle said. "I guess that the two of them didn't have a great Valentine's together."

"It was an alright lunch, from what I hear," Max said. "But Alex was keeping his distance, to a certain extent - didn't make a move to kiss her when they were on their way out. And I think he wasn't happy to hear that Isabel had gone along with Tess' blind date notion."

"Alright." Kyle pushed the pace a little further. "Is there anything else you wanted to cover?"

"I'm curious how things are going between you and Tess," Max admitted, stubbornly keeping up. "I mean, the fact that she wanted to do this with you is a good sign, but..."

"I guess we're doing okay," Kyle said. "She wanted to take things slow, but I don't mind. She certainly hasn't shown any signs of thinking that she made a big mistake dating me and wants to go back to pining over you, if that's what you're wondering."

"Good to know," Max said. "You know, this is really refreshing. You don't mind if I keep running with you, do you?"

"It's a free track," Kyle told him - and pushed himself to run a little bit faster, wondering if Max could keep up.

He did, for another lap.

#

Kyle came awake on the couch, and wondered what had disturbed his sleep. Only the light of a few street lamps filtered through the living room drapes, so it couldn't have been the approach of morning, or any unusual traffic outside.

He listened, wondering if he'd hear the noise of kids racing through the neighborhood, and heard something else. A faint noise, but one that electrified his nerves and had him up and running before he'd had time to think twice. Tess was crying out, faintly in distress, and for a second Kyle wondered if the alien bogeyman stalking Laurie Dupree had come back to search for her, and found a hybrid alien girl instead.

When Kyle burst into the bedroom, his eyes had already adjusted to the dimness, and it was fairly easy to tell that nobody had actually broken in. Tess was writhing and shaking under the covers in a blind panic, struggling with some kind of alien mental siege, or a nightmare, By Occam's razor, call it a nightmare, Kyle decided, and try to wake her up.

So he leaned over his girlfriend, took a grip on her shoulders, and gently shook. The motion didn't seem like enough to disturb Tess considering how much she'd already been shaking in her sleep, but the thrashing of her limbs calmed immediately, and then her eyelids popped open. Kyle was distracted for a moment that he couldn't see the familiar blue tint beneath, but that was just the low light, making of her eyes a pale grey. And then Tess was struggling to sit up. She got one hand on the back of Kyle's neck and tried to draw him down towards her, but couldn't because his elbows were locked and his hands still gripped her shoulders, effectively keeping her at arm's length.

Then Kyle realized what she had in mind and bent down to meet Tess' kiss, an embrace so warm that he seemed to melt into her. Tess was hungry for closeness, and only backed away to make sure that clothing was taken away - the little white tank top that she had been wearing went first, and then Kyle's t-shirt and the old sweat pants that he'd been sleeping in until they could get the heater vent for the living room fixed - or find more blankets to heap onto the couch.

Not that Kyle was really thinking about sleeping out in the cold living room at that moment. Heat was dominating his awareness, the heat that was flowing through every drop of his blood, the heat of Tess' bare skin as he fondled it or she pressed herself against him.

Until Kyle's fingers teased their way around Tess' soft and shapely thighs, and strayed across an imaginary line. Instantly the temperature in the entire room seemed to drop five degrees, and Tess shuffled back half an inch on the mattress. "Kyle, I'm sorry," she squeaked, the first real words that either of them had spoken since waking.

"No, I - I get it," he assured her, reaching out blindly for clothes as a way to occupy his restless energy - and because he felt all manner of stupid sitting there in his boxers once Tess had stepped on the brakes - even though she was more nearly naked than he was. (Which was a problem too, in its own way; maybe he should offer her the tank top to put on again - would that seem manly and sensitive or just lame?) "Do - do you want to talk about the dream?" He wasn't sure why he had suggested that, except that it seemed preferable to talking about why she didn't want him touching her there, yet.

"Well, no, not really." Tess tucked her legs under the bedclothes, and growled in frustration when she realized that they wouldn't cover her all the way, where she'd been sitting. By the time Kyle had the collar of the shirt over his head; Tess had herself covered from the waist down, but wasn't showing any signs of being concerned about the rest. He had to admit that he liked the waist up view, but it wasn't really making him relax into the moment.

"Max, Max was there, but it wasn't really like Max," Tess said. "Something was different about him, and - and he was angry at me. Really angry, not just pissed like he got when I tried to kiss him last summer, or indignant the way he was when he thought I was the killer shape-shifter. I don't think I've ever seen Max that angry at anybody, ever - and I've seen him go through things that suck enough that I've gotten angry on his behalf."

Kyle thought about that, as he reached out, picked up Tess' top, and tossed it close enough to her that she could reach out and put it on, or leave it there as she pleased. Retrieving his sweats required actually getting up and bending down a few steps away from the bed, which actually helped him feel a bit better, getting out of that space, so he sat down on the low chest that Tess had nagged him into retrieving from her old house on New Year's Eve. "Is that all that you can remember? Max yelling at you in a non-Max-like way?"

"Not really, I..." Tess broke off, and Kyle looked closely at her as she shrugged into the discarded clothing. "There was something, something that I'd done wrong, but I didn't know what it was or why."

Kyle could tell that that wasn't entirely true. He wasn't sure if it was a complete lie, or just that there was more to it that Tess was hiding from him, but he knew her well enough that he could sense when her practiced skills of deception were in play. Maybe she was even deceiving herself.

But it certainly wasn't a good time to push the issue, whatever it was. "Okay, umm - do you want me to stay in here? Are you ready to go back to sleep?"

"No, and no." Tess sat back up a little, raised a hand, and a robe flew through the air and into her hand. She proceeded to shrug into it and stood up without exposing even a glimpse of her legs above the ankles. "Let's keep company in the dining room, I can make some warm milk for myself, maybe add a little of that raspberry syrup that Amy brought over a few weeks back. That should help me get to sleep."

"No Tabasco this time?" Kyle kidded her.

"Not when I'm trying to avoid having a nightmare," Tess said. "Of course, a dash of black pepper might hit the spot..."


	2. Chapter 2

Kyle had just finished beating the eggs when he heard somebody else coming up the hall. "Good morning, I'm making French toast for breakfast," he called, and then poked his head into the dining room before saying anything else. The sight of Tess made him smile - she was looking very pretty in a fluffy blue robe that wasn't long enough to cover more than half of her thighs, and also warm white socks. Her hair seemed nearly straight, as if the nightmares had tossed her curls away, though Kyle knew that she'd probably just woken up, decided that she felt like straighter hair, and waved her hands accordingly. "The Tabasco's already out on the table."

"You're much too good to me," she said with a smile. "Did you get back to sleep at all after I woke you?"

"Ehh, I think so, not sure," Kyle admitted. "I was awake enough at five AM to get up and think about cooking. So - do you want to talk more about the dream now?"

"No, because we've got other things to discuss." She stepped over next to him and planted her lips solidly on the side of his neck. "We're on surveillance duty today, nearly all day, and I want to see if I can make it over to Liz's place to ask her a few questions about the blue crystals first."

"Nearly all day?" Kyle repeated. "It's a school day."

"Since when has that stopped you?" Tess teased. Kyle looked up from the stove, and saw that she'd poured a glass of grapefruit juice while he'd been cooking and was sitting at the table.

"Well, since I'm trying to pass Co-ordinate geometry this year and not have to take it again come fall."

"Does Henderson have a test scheduled?"

"No," Kyle admitted. "Can you toss me the bread, please?"

"Huh? Okay, just a second." Kyle watched somewhat curiously as Tess got up, picked the wrapped loaf of bread off the counter, and lobbed it all of maybe two feet into his waiting hands.

"Well, that works. I guess I was expecting you to just use your powers."

"This early in the morning?" Tess sighed. "Maybe if you want it to either bounce off your forehead or separated into a cloud of bread crumbs."

"All right." As Kyle opened up the bag and retrieved a slice, he reconsidered his assumption that Tess had already used alien powers on her hair. "So, Henderson and geometry. Not even much chance of a pop quiz, I admit. But, well, I've been sort of..."

"Grab your books," Tess suggested. "I can do the tutor-girl thing while we watch. Whatever might happen at the station with Laurie Dupree, it's not likely to wait for school to let out."

"Okay, fair enough," Kyle agreed. "So, why do you want to ask Liz about the crystals? I thought it was Max who actually had one."

There was a pause, and then Tess muttered something under her breath.

"What's wrong?" Kyle asked, tearing his attention from the first slice of French toast to stare into the dining room.

"Nothing big," Tess insisted. "I just spilled some juice. To answer your question, I could talk to Max, yeah, but since they're both a little twitchy about my past affections, I figured that it might be easier to be around Liz. I know that she's been working with him, studying it."

"Any idea what they've found out so far?"

"Not much." Tess let out a frustrated breath. "They're some kind of alien life form, we don't know how many of them are out there in Frazier woods or what they can do - or what they have to do with Laurie Dupree."

"Right," Kyle repeated. "And Laurie's grandfather, who looked a lot like Michael when he was young."

"That's about it," Tess agreed. "Good morning, Mister V. I'm calling dibs on the first piece of French toast."

"That's alright, Tess," Kyle's Dad said. "I'm not sure I could keep anything but coffee down. I've got my first job interview in twelve years this morning."

"Well, that explains the wardrobe choices, Dad," Kyle put in. His father was looking neat and scrubbed, in a gray suit that Kyle had only seen him put on for funerals, weddings, and few courtroom appearances where the sheriff's uniform would have been inappropriate. "Good luck, and remember that whoever it is, they'd be lucky to have you working for them. Who the heck is hiring, anyway?"

Dad chuckled. "MetaChem - the company putting up that bio-research facility on the edge of town. They've advertised that they want a candidate with experience in law enforcement to be head of security - both at the site during the remaining construction, and after the facility goes into operation."

"Oh," Tess muttered. "Isn't that the company that Grant Sorenson works for?"

"It was, back when Grant first came to Roswell," Dad agreed, taking the second seat at the table. "Max asked for my help in checking out his credentials, when Grant brought in those bones. He was a short-term contractor, and I think it didn't take him long to write his report of assessment on the MetaChem site and collect his pay. Then he took another contract for a non-profit who wanted some studies done on desert erosion patterns and how it was impacting something else."

"But he'd know people, and might be able to register an opinion if he finds out that you're applying for this job?" Kyle asked, having figured out where Tess' line of thought was going.

"Well, I suppose so. But I'm not really convinced that he would bother. I mean, he spouted off something about suing the county after I searched his tent, but there's been no follow-up yet."

"There's something else," Kyle said, feeling a lump in his throat. To buy some time, he made a production of taking the first slice of toast out to Tess and dipping a second piece of bread in the egg mixture. "When Tess and I were biking out on the desert trails the day before yesterday, I... I ran into Grant. Literally, and I made him break something."

"That was my fault," Tess said. "I went off the marked trail, so Kyle had to follow me and make sure that I didn't get myself lost, and I guess he was watching me and not where he was going. But the point is, Grant just freaked out. And he recognized that Kyle was your son, and that I was your - foster daughter, I guess. He sounded like there was nothing that he wouldn't do to give any of us payback for the wrongs that we've done him. And that night, he came by while we were out at dinner, and - well, he didn't even say anything, but the way he glared at me..."

"Ah, I didn't realize that things had escalated in that direction," Jim said mildly. "Thank you for letting me know. But still, I'm not worried. I've seen a lot of people make threats and threatening postures over the years, and yes, sometimes it does escalate to true violence, but we're all reasonably capable of protecting ourselves. As far as this job goes - if Grant manages to find out and gives me a bad reference, and they don't give me an opportunity because of that - as Kyle suggested, that's their loss. I'll just find another opportunity, with someone who wouldn't give Grant as much credit."

"That sounds good, Dad," Kyle said. "Do you need to head out the door, right now?"

"No, the appointment isn't until ten." Dad looked down at his suit. "I probably shouldn't have gotten dressed up quite so early, should I? It's just more of an opportunity to get a stain on the fabric."

"Consider this a dry run," Tess suggested. "To make sure that there's no problem with the outfit. But you should take it off now that you've confirmed - and eat something. Seriously. You won't be able to knock MetaChem's socks off with low blood sugar."

Dad looked over at Kyle, who shrugged and flipped the toast on the frying pan. "My girlfriend's got a point."

"Okay, okay." Dad nodded decisively, and exited in the direction of the hallway.

"So, do you want me to come to the Crashdown with you?" Kyle asked Tess once he was gone.

"No, that's okay, really. I need to figure out how to get along with Liz without anybody else mediating."

"Okay," Kyle said. "Maybe I should go by the school and see if I can find one of the guys to pick up homework for me. When do we need to be at the lookout point?"

"Well, I'll probably be ready by quarter to nine," Tess said. "That seems to be about when Agent Duff starts her working day, as far as anybody's been able to find out. Michael and Maria will be blowing off their seventh period and relieving us at two thirty."

"Sounds good," Kyle said. "I'll try to be there by eight forty." And then, something gave him the impulse to flip the French toast over onto his plate, without even lifting up a corner to peek. Perfectly golden brown. "Not bad, not bad at all," he muttered to himself.

#

Liz was just finishing her own breakfast when Tess walked through the front doors of the Crashdown dining room. Liz was dressed in jeans and a dark orange t-shirt instead of her waitress uniform, and looked up from the crumb-filled plate as Tess approached. "Miss Harding, what can I do for you this morning?"

"Talk to me about Frazier woods," Tess said.

"Umm, yeah, okay - while you drive me to school?"

"Sure."

Neither of the girls said anything as Liz grabbed her light jacket and book bag, or on the way out to Tess' SUV in the parking lot. When she opened up the car, though, Tess turned to Liz. "I feel like there's a question you want to ask, but can't figure out how to start. Something about Kyle and I, maybe?"

Liz chuckled. "Maybe just 'how are things going between the two of you?' I feel funny about prying into your love life, but..."

"But it's the one thing that's keeping me from interfering with your love life," Tess pointed out, and chuckled. Both of them opened their doors and entered the car, nearly in unison. "We're doing okay, I think - though I had to backing away from getting too physical at three o'clock this morning - it just wasn't something that I felt ready for. But that's private stuff that I probably shouldn't be telling you."

"Fair enough," Liz agreed. She left it at that for a moment, and Tess pulled out of her parking spot and onto the street. "So, what do you need to know, and is it actually about Frazier woods in general, or more about blue crystals?"

"The crystals," Tess agreed. "Something that's been bugging me when we talk about them, that probably you never put much thought into. We've been talking about these blue jobbies as alien life-forms, alien cells, but you and Max have been studying them in microscopes. So..."

"Oh, yeah, I think I see what you're driving at," Liz said with a little chuckle. "Michael and Maria asked too, so maybe we should have reviewed with the entire group. A single crystal is - well, it might be a life-form in the same way that you and I are, or it might not, depending on where you draw the lines. It's definitely not one huge cell - it's a big mass of little living cells, a bit like you or me or an ant - except that with us, the cells are different and each have their own job to do. For the blue-crystal creatures, all of the cells are uniform as far as we can see, which is something that I haven't come across in biology so far - they're a bit like mushrooms, except that in mushrooms the different parts of the cell are specialized. Part of each fungus cell forms a root, then another part of the same cell is in the stem, and another part of the cap, then the part that releases the spores. Maybe mould fits, actually - that's pretty undifferentiated, as a collection of cells."

"Great," Tess said, trying to absorb this spiel of information that Liz had just unloaded onto her. So we've got alien mould, or something like it, down in Frazier woods?"

"Something like - I mean, the cells don't really fit any of the other criteria for fungus - maybe alien sponges? I don't really know. Or maybe they don't really qualify as single life forms, just a big pile of little alien buggers that happen to be sticking to each other."

Somehow that managed to trigger something from Tess' own struggles with high school biology class. "If none of the cells are specialized, how do the ones in the middle feed?"

"Max and I both wondered, but we don't know what any of the cells feed on - except that they tried to snack on him that once, and didn't like the taste." Liz sighed. "Is any of this helpful?"

"I guess so," Tess said after a moment. "Alien sponges underground, with mysterious eating habits. I guess I'll have to be satisfied with that for now. And we're just watching the Sheriff's station to keep an eye on Laurie Dupree, and see if we can spot any clue to why there's a connection between her and the alien sponges."

"Yup," Liz said. "You and Kyle should have fun watching today."

"How much fun did you and Max have?" Liz managed a half-smile, and Tess sighed to herself. "Okay, okay - I guess it's too weird for me to be fishing for vicarious details about your love life with the guy I used to be obsessed over."

"Just a smidge," Liz said. "But it's probably a step forward from you plotting to have a love life with Max yourself."

"Yeah." Tess nodded. "So, what else is going on in the life of Liz Parker?"

"Not much," Liz said. "I keep thinking about what Alex told me about his trip to Sweden. I really do want to travel more, maybe this summer."

"Hey, you travelled last summer, more than any of the rest of us did."

"Florida doesn't really count as travelling."

"Says who?"

#

Kyle was waiting around in the parking lot of the Hi-ho grocery mart when Tess finally pulled up. "Hey, what are you doing hanging around here?" she asked as she hopped out of the SUV. "With so many deputies coming in and out of the area, you might actually get a ticket for loitering."

"Well, I wasn't sure where else to meet you," he said. "It wasn't like you told me exactly how to get up to this lookout spot of Michael's."

"Oh, right, that's kind of important, isn't it? And - I'm sorry for snapping at you, honey." The two of them came together for a quick kiss. "Just out of curiosity, did you try going around the building and looking for an obvious access?"

"Well, yes," Kyle admitted. "I didn't see one - where is it?"

"It's not obvious," Tess reassured him, leading him around the edge of the strip mall block, and Kyle followed, carrying the bag of gear that Tess had left in his car. "At least, I wouldn't find it so. Which makes sense; otherwise they'd probably always have kids sneaking up there. But I was curious about whether you had enough initiative to try that."

"Does it matter?"

"In a 'getting to know you' way? Of course it matters. Is it a skill that you'll need to be practicing? That depends on how often you'll be willing to get involved in this sort of alien stuff."

"Well, I was seldom able to get out of being involved, even when I wasn't... dating you. Now I guess I'm up to - well, up to the level of taking on a minimum amount of danger for what seems like a reasonable necessity."

"I see. Come on." By this time they were at the back of the storefronts, and Tess reached out her hand, holding it over a steel doorknob. Kyle saw a trace of a faint yellow glow that faded out when Tess turned the knob and opened the door. Quietly she led him down the dim hallway, around a corner and past a few open storerooms, and then opened another door that led to the stairs heading upwards.

"Enjoying the view 'back there'?" Tess asked when she was about halfway up.

"Uhh... well, yeah. Were you guessing, or can you actually see into my brain or something?"

Tess sighed and shook her head slightly while doing the little hand-glow trick on the door at the top of the stairs. "Neither, really. I mean, I could sense a bit of what you're seeing if I really concentrated, because that's something I need to do in order to override it with what I want somebody to see if I'm mind-warping them. But I wasn't doing that. I heard you moaning."

"Whoops." Kyle hadn't even realized that he was making a sound. "Sorry, I guess."

"Nah, it's okay," Tess told him. The door was swinging open now, and after heading out onto the roof, Tess turned around so that she could face him. "I didn't realize that these clothes made the 'good butt' list, though." She gestured at the brown slacks that she was wearing that day.

"I'm not sure that there's much that would end up on the 'bad butt' list, or even 'mediocre butt', on you," Kyle told her earnestly. "Especially not anything that tight. That's a great top too, while I'm at it - the ensemble is enough that I might have a hard time keeping my eyes on watching the station, and my mind on what we're really supposed to be doing up here all day."

"Hmm... thanks, and I could say the same for you." Kyle looked down at the black t-shirt that he was wearing, and his blue-jeans, and realized with surprise that everything was tight enough to show off his muscles. Tess laughed playfully at his reaction.

"But we probably should get right to it. Hand me the bag," Tess said after a momentary pause. Once Kyle did, Tess extracted two pairs of binoculars from it, and led him over to the front ledge of the roof, to a spot in front of the dark 'Open 24 hours' sign. To their right was the printed sign for the cheese shop next door, and Kyle poked his head over the ledge for a moment, long enough to realize that they were over the main entrance for the Hi-ho market.

"Okay, where are we supposed to be looking?" he asked. "I mean, I can see the station from here, obviously, but which window is Duff's office?"

"It's second from the left, on the ground floor," Tess said, the eyepieces of her small binoculars already brought up to her face. "It doesn't look like our Special Agent is in yet, this morning. So we probably don't need to keep staring, just remember to check every ten minutes or so." Tess put the binoculars down and spent a little while peering at her digital watch and pressing buttons on it. "Do you have any ideas for how to distract ourselves in the meantime?"

"If it's okay with you, I'd like to talk a bit more," Kyle admitted, carefully sitting down on the rough asphalt surface of the roof. Tess raised an eyebrow at that, but she sat down too, silently. "Yeah, a bit of a shocker I know, but really, what's the fun of making out when you know that you're on a timer, really? And we've got all day. Probably, after being around you for a few hours, I'll be jumping at the smallest chance, but I'm not there yet."

"Okay," Tess said, nodding. "So what do you want to bring up for discussion?"

Half a dozen possible questions raced through Kyle's mind, and he chose the one that seemed least likely to upset his new sweetheart. "How did things go with Liz?"

"Well, she was able to explain a few things that were puzzling me about those alien crystal things, and more generally, I think that the barrier between the two of us is starting to thaw, which is definitely a good thing." She looked around. "Maybe I should have given up on snagging Max for myself much sooner - I could have saved myself a lot of pain if I'd been less stubborn. I think I knew a long time ago that I didn't stand much of a chance."

"How long ago?" Kyle asked.

"Let's see - maybe last summer, a week after school let out. I'd heard from Michael that Liz had gone to Florida, and that Max was in a bit of a funk, so I went over to his house, to surprise him, do my best to cheer him up."

"Okay, I'm with you so far," Kyle agreed. "Just how cheery were you prepared to be?"

Tess shook her head. "There was very little I wasn't prepared to do - and just since I think you'll appreciate the mental picture, I'll mention that I drove over wearing a bikini and cut-off hot pants as a cover-up."

"Oh, my. The brain boggles - or at least, I think that's my brain."

"Yeah, Max seemed halfway happy to see me at first; he invited me in, offered me a choice of cool beverages, and we sat out in the shade on the backyard deck. I asked him how he was doing, he said alright, and I mentioned that I heard Liz had gone out of town for the summer, and - I don't know, it was like some switch inside Max got flipped, that nothing else has touched in him, before or since."

"Really?" Kyle asked. "What was that like?"

"Well, it kind of started small and grew," Tess admitted. "First he was kind of snippy and sarcastic, then really angry, and finally he started pacing back and forth, ranting at a volume just short of a shout, and calling me really nasty names." She shuddered. "The gist of it, though, was that he didn't believe I was at all sincere in my concern over his reaction to Liz leaving, that it was my fault she'd gone, that he didn't like me or think that I was desirable as a replacement for her." She took a deep breath. "And - this was the part that hurt the most of all, really - that because of me, he was struggling without the support and friendship of the one person he trusted the most in the entire world, as he dealt with trying to come to terms with Pierce torturing him in the White Room."

"Whoa, wait up there, hold the phone!" Kyle said. "Pierce? As in, the guy I handed a gun to in the UFO center, setting myself up to get accidentally shot by Dad?"

"Well, yeah." Tess cocked her head to one side slightly.

"And he tortured Max Evans - somewhere white? When?"

"Umm - maybe twenty-four hours before you slipped into the UFO center, with the gun." Tess' eyes narrowed slightly. "Didn't you hear that Max was missing? No, I guess nobody would have told you. I guess I thought that your father would have told you about the whole thing after it was over."

"He tried, but I didn't want to listen at the time - and after I got back from football camp, there was a whole new batch of freaky alien news."

"All right." Tess took a deep breath. "You knew that your father had gone missing, right?"

"Well, yeah, that was why I was so pissed."

"Liz, Maria and Alex went to ask for his help getting Max out. All five of us could have been captured if it wasn't for him."

"All five of whom?"

"Max, Michael, Isabel, me, and Ed. The other four of us went up to Eagle Rock base to get Max out, but we couldn't quite manage to get ourselves..."

And then Tess' countdown timer started to sound, and she pressed a button to silence it after a few beeps, then grabbed the binoculars and turned around to look across the street. "Good morning, Agent Duff - and what are you up to this fine morning?"

Kyle shrugged, got up, and went to crouch next to her, using his own binoculars. He could see a young woman in the window with straight blonde hair - presumably Laurie Dupree. It was hard to tell what was going on without some sort of super-hearing, though.

#

"Hey - did you guys really think that we were Sheriff Hanson and one of his deputies coming to throw you out of here?" Michael asked.

Tess looked over at Michael and Maria where they stood next to the roof stairs. "Um, yeah," she admitted, and slipped the material of her T-shirt back down over her chest. "But the make out session started before we'd heard anybody coming, honestly."

"I see," Maria said. "How much before? Eight hours ago?"

"No, we've been on the job for most of that time, doing the stakeout thing," Kyle muttered, trying to match Tess' unruffled demeanour, but girls appeared to have an advantage in terms of getting taken seriously when caught in flagrante. "But Duff took off for an errand or something, and nothing else important has happened since then."

"Okay, maybe she's getting a late lunch or something," Michael said. "Whatever. We can take it from here - but has anything else important been going on?"

"She's been interrogating Laurie all day," Tess reported. "Trying to pull the good-cop, bad-cop routine all by herself, as far as we can tell, and Laurie doesn't seem to like it much. Whatever it is that Agent Duff wants to hear, either Laurie doesn't know it or doesn't understand the question."

"Or maybe she just doesn't trust her," Maria suggested. "Is there anything else?"

"Not really," Kyle decided. "Oh, Tess wigged out slightly when some unfamiliar guys in blue suits went inside, but they didn't stay long."

Michael and Maria exchanged looks. "Maybe it doesn't have anything to do with any of us," Maria suggested.

"Yeah, we all hope so," Tess said, packing up some of the leavings of their lunch and snacks into the bags that they'd come from. "Have a good evening's stakeout."

"Maybe if things are quiet on the Sheriff's front, we can have as much fun as the two of you did," Maria called.

Tess headed over to the passenger side door of Kyle's car. "Umm, aren't you forgetting something?" he asked her, weighing the keys in his hand.

"Probably... want to give me a clue, honey?"

"We drove here separately," he prompted. "Or were you intending to leave Big Blue parked here all night?"

"Oh, right," she said, looking around for her SUV. "Big Blue?"

"Yeah, didn't that name start with you?" he asked, and Tess shrugged uncertainly. "Okay, I guess not. I wonder who I heard it from, then."

"It seems a bit odd that someone in the gang would nickname my SUV," Tess admitted. "Though - well, it is big for a vehicle, especially compared with how short I am as a person. And it's such a pretty shade of blue. The name does fit."

"There's a lot of vehicle names that circle around in the gang, and I've never been sure who came up with them," Kyle admitted. "Max's Jeep is 'Bob' and Amy DeLuca's Jetta is 'Genie,' and I've never figured out a reason why for either of them. Well, we really should both put in an appearance at school for last period - that was the whole point of Michael and Maria taking over for us now, right?" Tess nodded reluctant agreement. "After that, is it alright if we just meet up at home?"

"That definitely makes sense as a first step," she admitted. "If we go anywhere else tonight, I'd like it to be going together, on foot or in a single vehicle. Home is where both of our cars will need to be for tomorrow morning, so we can figure it out from there."

"That sounds good to me." And then, for no very good reason except he suddenly wanted to, Kyle went around the car and gave Tess a kiss goodbye to last him until they could next be together.

#

Kyle didn't arrive until an hour after school had let out, on account of basketball practice, which he'd forgotten about until Pauly reminded him about it in the history classroom. He found Tess at the dinner table, finishing off a glass of coke that presumably had Tabasco stirred into it. "Hey, I'm sorry if I left you waiting. Is Dad around?"

"Nope, he's over at Amy's for the evening," Tess said, picking up a large post-it note between her fingers and showing it to Kyle, though he couldn't really make out the letters before he got closer. "Apparently the job interview went fairly well."

Kyle sighed to himself, as Tess referring to that interview immediately made him think of Grant Sorenson and his quest for payback. "Well, good for him," he managed to say.

Tess took a sip of her drink, and smiled to herself. "So, I've been thinking - since we spent all day doing something that was really my idea, you should be able to pick the activity for tonight. Well, within the established ground rules, more or less."

Kyle chuckled. "Well, I don't really feel like going out elsewhere and being with anybody else, and it sounds like we've got the house to ourselves for a few hours. So how about - we pull out the game console?" Tess' full mouth quirked downward. "You don't want to, do you?"

"Yes, I do, it'll be fun," she managed. "I hope. I mean, yeah, it wasn't what I was thinking of, but I meant it when I said that it should be your choice."

"Well, this probably sounds too sappy, but what I really choose is something that you'd like too," Kyle said firmly, and Tess smiled that very vulnerable smile that she only showed very rarely. "Okay, let's see - if we're staying in, we could watch a movie instead, or just go to the Crashdown and hang out - again."

"Yeah, I'll go for option C, at least to start," Tess said. "Not to run into Max or anything, I promise, just - we've been alone together all day, really, and though I do like spending time alone with you, it'd be nice to be a bit more social. You're sure that you're okay with that?"

"Yeah, of course," Kyle said. "You want to head out right now?"

"No, give me a few minutes." Tess stood up and looked down at herself. "I feel like changing, dressing up, just for the heck of it. You can slip into the shower ahead of me, if you feel like it."

"It's not like you need to use water," Kyle teased her. "You can just wave your hands and get clean in a few seconds, right?"

"Yeah, but that's not really as fun."

"Well, you know what the most fun shower of all is, right?"

Tess chuckled. "Yeah, I do - and see above under 'ground rules.' When I'm ready, though, we'll certainly have to give that one a try."


	3. Chapter 3

When Kyle and Tess finally strolled into the dining room of the Crashdown, the dinner rush was just tapering off. The only familiar face was Alex, sitting with his Galaxy fries at a table big enough for two. (Well, aside from one of the waitresses, who Kyle had decided was kind of cute several months ago.)

Tess didn't waste any time pulling a third chair over to Alex's table. "Good evening. Mind if we join you for a minute?"

Alex looked up, blinked a little at what he saw, and chuckled to himself. Tess' idea of dressing up for the evening had included a denim skirt that stopped a few inches above her knees, and a long-sleeved top that showed off most of her stomach. "Actually, go and grab that empty booth. I'll gather my stuff and join you."

"Alright, sir, I'll give you a hand," Kyle said, picked up Alex's root beer float and took it with him.

"So, where's everybody else?" Tess asked once Alex and his fries were settled in the booth.

"Let's see. Max and Liz went out dancing. Michael and Maria are probably making out on a rooftop, knowing them. Isabel is spending some time with her parents, and then there were three."

"Right, okay. How are things going between you and Leanna?"

"Alright, I guess." Alex spooned up some ice cream. "I mean, I miss her, and it's hard thinking about doing the long-distance thing for months and months before we'll have a chance to see each other again. She wanted to fly stateside this summer, maybe meet me on the East coast or something, but it looks like that's not going to work out. Plus - well, like an idiot, I said something about Isabel to her on the phone a few days ago, and I think that Leanna's getting paranoid about her."

"Ooh, that's not great," Tess admitted, looking up from the menu that she'd opened up. "At least, not you and Leanna as a couple. I'm kind of surprised that you don't want to get back together with Isabel, actually."

"Well, I'm not sure that Isabel would even take me back now, she's so pissed with me about the roof and binoculars thing," Alex pointed out.

"She's not pissed, not really," Tess insisted. "She feels rejected, and she's hurt. But even so, I do think that she wants to be with you, Alex. She's been going on and on about seeing a different side of you, ever since you got back from Sweden." There was an awkward pause. "Do you really like Leanna that much, that Isabel Evans doesn't have any appeal to you anymore?"

"Max mentioned that you were upset that Isabel had gotten sucked into our whole Valentine snafu thing," Kyle put in.

"Oh, really?" Tess said. "I'm so sorry, that was completely my fault - can't even read a sign when it's hanging there a foot in front of my face. I shouldn't have gotten Isabel involved."

"No, no, it's okay, guys," Alex said, laughing. "I was a little taken aback when I realized that Isabel had another date on Valentine's day, but so did I. That's not the problem. But I'm not sure I can trust Isabel, not in that way. That she'd never do anything to hurt me, have my back in a crisis no matter who we're up against and move heaven and earth to get me help if I was in trouble, yeah, I know that I can count on her. But it's been too many times now that Isabel has decided that she can't afford to be open to love, not with me. And I can't just keep... keep letting her in and ending up feeling like I've been run over by a Honda. Yes, I know that if she's really ready and I don't give her that chance, I could be missing out on something amazing, but... I guess I'd want some way to be sure beforehand, and I don't have any idea what that would be."

"Yeah, that's a tough one," Tess agreed quietly. "And in the hopes of moving us on to a happier topic - how much action did you actually get from Swedish Leanna? None of this 'gentlemen don't kiss and tell' crap - you're not that much of a gentleman."

Alex broke out laughing, met Kyle's intent gaze, and shrugged, shaking his head. "Leanna - is an amazing kisser, though she seemed to get offended at the notion that we give any credit to the French for kissing, or for a particular kind of kissing." Tess giggled. "Beyond that, well, we fooled around one time, two nights before I left to fly home, but that wasn't really second base. Are you satisfied with those details?"

"I guess we'd better not push him," Kyle said to Tess. "He really is pretty gentle, about the most gentlemanly teenage boy we'd find in town."

"Alright, alright," Tess said.

"Your turn," Alex prompted. "How are things going with the two of you?" Tess' eyes widened. "Not asking for the same kind of details, really, more about what it's like for the two of you to get together when you were - well, you had a dynamic that wasn't quite that before, though I'll admit there might have been a current of sexual tension for a while."

Kyle made a grand 'after you' gesture, and Tess replied with a comically annoyed face. Probably she realized that he was as interested in Alex in what her answer would be. "Umm, things are going okay between the two of us - I have to admit that it does feel a little incestuous because I have to sleep in the same house with my new boyfriend - and Mister V has laid down the law about letting each other stay over the night in the same bed, even if I felt ready for that."

"Staying over the night, as opposed to a briefer sort of activity in bed together?" Alex prompted.

"Yeah, that's where Dad decided to draw the line," Kyle told him. "He said he actually found something about that on a support website for the parents of stepsiblings who hook up together." He sighed. "Oh, hey, did you hear about the Grant Sorenson thing?"

"Umm, I'm not sure, I've heard possibly too many things about that particular geologist, but not sure which one you're referring to."

"Okay, well, it started with Kyle and me going biking out in the desert," Tess started.

#

Tess and Kyle had spent half an hour promenading around downtown Roswell, chatting about Tess' history before she got to Roswell, when Kyle's cell phone rang. He checked the call display before answering. "Yeah, Dad? What's up?"

"Hi. I usually don't expect you to keep tabs on your friends for me, but would you happen to know what Michael and Maria are up to tonight?"

Kyle hesitated only a second before answering. "They're out on club business. Why do you ask?"

"Well, it's past the time that Maria said she'd be home, and Amy can't reach her. She's starting to get a bit freaked out."

Kyle looked around; making eye contact with Tess, though he wasn't sure how much she'd been able to understand from his terse answers. "They were going to keep an eye on Laurie Dupree - and Agent Duff. I'm not sure if they're still there or just stopped off somewhere to fool around before going home."

Jim considered only a moment. "Where, exactly, is 'there'? Do you know?"

"The roof of the Hi-ho market across the street from the sheriff's station. I think that you can get up there from the back door..."

"Got it." Now Jim's voice got a bit softer, but stayed at least as intense. "I've got a bad feeling, and I want to check this out. I think I can tell Amy that I just want to go drive around and see if I can spot Maria and Michael parked somewhere without her getting more anxious. But - if you're willing, I'd like you to swing by and just keep her a little bit distracted, until I know something."

Kyle nodded with the phone to his ear. "Yeah, that's fine. Do you think it's okay if Tess wants to come along too?"

"Yeah, sure, Amy likes her, and I think the feeling is mutual. Talk to you again soon."

"Yeah. Go get 'em, whatever." Kyle ended the call, and looked over at Tess. "How much of that did you hear?"

"Someone was worried about Michael - was it your Dad?" Tess' eyes were a brilliant shade of blue in the streetlight, and Kyle felt caught in them as he nodded. "Where did he want you to go?"

"To Maria's mom's house, to help keep her from worrying. Maria said that she'd be home by now."

"Right, okay." Tess pulled out her own phone. "I hope your father won't mind having a few Evanses to back him up."

"I don't know," Kyle muttered. "That's what got him into trouble in the first place."

"Yeah... but if Michael's missing, Max will want to know right away."

"I can't argue with that," Kyle said. "But can you call from the car? I'd like to be on our way to Amy's as quickly as possible, and it's only a few blocks back to the Crashdown."

"Okay."

#

The front door to the DeLuca's was half open when Kyle and Tess got to the porch, though the screen door was closed all the way, Tess reached out towards the doorbell, but then they heard a call of "Who is it?" from inside, and Amy scrambled into her front hall, only to noticeably deflate as she realized that the teenaged boy and girl waiting weren't the ones that she had been hoping for - particularly the girl. "Oh, hello Kyle - hi Tess. Did your Dad ask you to swing by and keep me occupied, Kyle?"

Kyle was about to say yes, when Tess opened her mouth first and said, "No, I'm here to see Maria. Why would Jim want us to keep you occupied?" She wrapped her arm around Kyle's back and squeezed his side meaningfully, where Amy was unlikely to notice the caress. Then Kyle worked it through. If they admitted that Jim had sent them, then Amy would have to conclude that they were covering for Michael and Maria's absence, that either the two of them had been up to no good, or there was some secret about where they had last been seen. Both of which were true, and neither of which they wanted Amy to know.

"Really?" Amy stared doubtfully at Tess.

"Yeah. I mean, I know that we're not best buds, but... there's something I need to ask her advice on, something that Isabel can't help me with, and - I don't really have any other girlfriends my own age. It's kinduv personal." Tess did a good job at looking from Kyle to Amy, as if apologetic that she couldn't bring her problem to either of them.

"Okay, well - my daughter has not yet returned home, and I haven't been able to reach her phone." Amy sighed. "That's why I was suspicious that you were helping Jim to manage my motherly panic. I'm not sure that either of you should stay over for long, since it's a school night, but you can wait up with me a little. Can I get you anything?"

"Do you have hot chocolate and Tabasco?" Tess asked.

"I think that we should have both of them around somewhere, separately unless Michael's had the same craving."

When the three of them were arranged around Amy's coffee tale with their refreshments of choice, Amy looked straight at Tess. "I have to admit, I was surprised when Jim told me that the two of you were, well, that you were Valentines - and trying to make it work while you're still both under Jim's roof. How's that going?"

"Everybody seems to be asking me that question today," Tess said, rolling her eyes. "Sorry, it's not your fault for being curious. We're doing alright, taking things slow and getting to know each other all over again, all that good stuff."

"Yeah, I guess I know how that goes." Amy nodded at Kyle, and he shook himself, suddenly unnerved at the notion that just looking at him might remind Amy of his father. She'd known Jim when he was around the same age as Kyle was now, and Kyle couldn't remember seeing a photo of his father in his high-school days to try and judge how close the resemblance between them was. "Well, that's good. By the way - Jim did approach me about the possibility of you moving in, to try and reduce the awkwardness of your situation with Kyle, and I hope that you're not upset that I..."

"You thought there would be even more awkwardness with Maria," Tess finished. "I completely understand that.

"Well, it's not just Maria. The cot in the spare room is already spoken for, until Sean figures out the rest of his master plan, and though there's more than one sofa free at night, this house would get a little too crowded with four of running around, all wanting to use the bathroom."

"Yeah, I get the picture," Tess insisted.

"Hey, where was Cousin Sean over Valentine's day?" Kyle put in. "I just realized that I didn't see him hanging around Liz or annoying Maria for a little while. Though I suppose I should feel glad - it could have messed up the whole pact if Liz hadn't been able to focus her attention on Max because Sean was crowding her."

"He went on a little road trip to visit his high school flame, who lives on her parent's ranch up near Santa Fe," Amy said. "Apparently that didn't work out well for him, and then he came back to town to find out that Max and Liz had reconciled, and fell into a full-fledged romantic funk. But tell me more about this pact, Kyle."

"Oh no," Kyle mumbled under his breath.

"Let me try this time sweetie," Tess said, reaching out to cover his hand with hers for a moment. "I didn't hear this part until the day before yesterday myself, but apparently, that rainy morning a few days before the fourteenth, Kyle bumped into Liz and realized that she was spying on Max, and started to ask about why they weren't together anymore. Part of that reason was - well, I'd been stalking Max myself, in my own endearing way, and Liz didn't particularly want the angst of trying to compete with me for Max's attention - not that he was really paying much attention to me, in that way, I just wanted him to."

Tess paused at this point, and Amy nodded, gesturing for her to go on. "So - I guess it was Kyle who proposed the pact - that he'd run interference for Liz, by distracting me with his own cute self for the Valentine's day season, and Liz would ask Max to be her Valentine. Of course, Kyle didn't just come right out and ask me out or anything, which led to a few crossed signals, and I actually went so far as to set him up with Isabel Evans for a big romantic Valentine's dinner. But when Kyle figured out that I was so clueless, he rushed out and found me, and - well, and here we are now."

"Here you are, indeed, and here's to the two of you," Amy said, lifting her mug of mocha coffee in a toast.

"You know, this is a bit of a call-back to a subject that you girls left behind, but I had a notion about the whole housing situation," Kyle announced. "It's a little out there, so we might not end up going for it, but I thought I'd make sure to mention it."

"Oh, and what's that, Kyle?" Amy asked, her eyebrows bunching down slightly.

"We trade Tess - you take Tess in, and we'll take Sean off your hands. Guys' house and girls' house, I guess you could call it. What do you think?"

Amy shook her head. Tess rolled her eyes. "Honey, I think that if you spend much time in a guys' house with Sean DeLuca, you won't long stay the dear and sweet boy that I took as my Valentine," Tess told him after a moment's thought.

"Okay, I guess. The trade idea dies right here. No harm in suggesting it."

There was a pause. "So, what's up in your life lately, Amy?" Tess asked. "Beyond your on-again and off-again relationship with a certain ex-sheriff?"

"Oh, not that much. Business at the shop is doing well, and then there's the time that I spend trying to keep track of my darling Maria." Amy looked around. "Can I ask you something, just between the three of us?"

"Um - okay, yeah."

"About Jim - do you know anything definite about why he was really out there in the woods with Max and Isabel, when they found that poor Laurie girl? I mean, I trust him completely, of course, but - it hurts a little that he hasn't told me what really happened? To be honest, I don't buy the library story any more than the council did, and it makes me wonder exactly what he's trying to hide."

Kyle shot a look over at Tess, and was surprised to find her looking very puzzled. "Well, I understand what you mean, but I don't have much to tell you about that. Max hasn't told me anything about it, really, except - well, I know that Isabel was having bad dreams that week before they found Laurie, and acting very worried about something. I'm not sure if that fits into the whole deal."

Amy considered this. "I know this might sound out there, but do you think it's possible that she was getting premonitions of Laurie in trouble from her dreams?"

Kyle chuckled. "You're being weird again, Missus DeLuca."

"I wouldn't write off such things so quickly," Amy said. "You believe in souls, and reincarnation, right Kyle?" He nodded. "Well, then, isn't it possible that certain things, like psychic dreams, could be real because somebody's soul transcends the limits of the body, at great need? Not everything can be explained in terms of familiar forces and atoms."

Tess shrugged. "Okay, I think that's enough talking about current affairs. How about we play a little cards, and if Maria's not back by the time we've finished one game, then we're heading back?"

"Alright, you've got a deal, but only if you let me teach you the rules of Scopa," Amy countered. "I think I've got a deck around on the bookshelves somewhere."

#

Amy had almost reached eleven points when Jim showed up, having had no obvious luck in finding Michael or Maria. He told Amy that there was still nothing to worry about, that the two of them could have snuck off somewhere to be alone and lost track of time, but as he led his two charges out of the house, Kyle could see worry in his face. "What's going on?"

"No talking about it here," Jim said. "I guess it'll have to wait until we're home."

Kyle checked Tess' face and saw that she looked at least twice as worried. "How about you let Tess ride with you, and you can talk in the truck, while I bring up the rear?"

Jim nodded with resignation. "Alright, see you back there."

Tess restrained herself from asking questions as Jim pulled his truck out into the street. Finally he sighed softly. "Okay, I found the way up to that roof, and there were enough signs that Michael and Maria had been there. They both left in a hurry, or possibly somebody surprised them there. I found a little pair of binoculars, some snacks and trash, a pen and pad of paper, and Maria's black scarf."

"Okay," Tess said. "Is that it?"

"Well, I checked quickly at Michael's place - no sign of them there. And then I called Hanson, trying to make it sound casual, just wondering how things were doing. He'd been called back into the station, and the place sounded crazy."

"Oh, no," Tess muttered. "What happened?"

"I don't think anybody is clear on all the details," Jim said. " I'm not. But here's what I know. Agent Duff tried to move Laurie back to that hospital facility in Texas this evening. The van only made it a mile outside of town. There was gunfire, somebody shooting at the van, and by the time help arrived, Laurie was gone. Nobody knows if the shooter took her, if she managed to run off by herself, or what."

"So she's missing and unaccounted for," Tess said slowly. "Like Michael and Maria."

"Yes."

"Well, thanks for doing what you could, Mister Valenti," she said.

"I guess that there's not much that any of us could do other than stay close to home and wait for news."

"Well, there's one thing that I can think of." Tess paused before continuing. "There are a few places outside of town that Michael might have tried to go if he was in trouble. The most obvious - is the Pod chamber." She wasn't sure if anybody had ever actually mentioned that name to Jim Valenti before, and wasn't about to tell him more about it, but he didn't even ask. "As far as we know, only the four of us can get in there, so if anybody's going to check, it would need to be me, Max, or Isabel. Then, there's the silver mine, and this cave in the reservation, though I haven't been there myself."

There was silence as Jim drove onto the street where he lived. "If Michael and Maria are in enough trouble that they'd need to hide in any of those places, is it smart to go looking for them? You could draw the attention of whomever or whatever they're hiding from."

"But with all of us together, we're stronger than Michael is by himself - or with only Maria to back him up," Tess pointed out. "There's less to be scared of when we're strong together."

"That's fair," Kyle agreed. "But you're all tired now. How strong are you without your rest?"

"Gotcha," Tess agreed. "No chasing off in the desert until morning."

"And maybe they'll have checked in by then."

"Right." Tess waited as Jim parked the truck in his driveway, and then ran out and over to Kyle's car, to give him a hug for having suggested this driving arrangement so that she wouldn't have to wait in ignorance for longer.

#

Tess woke to the shrill sounds of Avril Lavigne coming from the top of her bedside table. She fumbled the cell phone open, wondering why she hadn't changed Max's ring tone from the one that she had picked while she was still mooning over him. Then again, if she left it like this, maybe it would become a joke in a few more days.

" Max, what time is it?"

"One in the morning, but - I wasn't sure you'd be able to sleep. Sorry about that. I've got news."

The way he put that made Tess shiver. "Hit me."

"Michael's okay, Maria and Laurie are with him. They saw the van leaving with Laurie, followed them, and got Laurie out safely when the shooting started. Now they're halfway to Alamogordo, on the back roads."

"So, it sounds like they're not coming back to Roswell," Tess pointed out.

"No... it's like this. Michael's worried about Laurie. Hanson can't keep her safe, here in Roswell, and the FBI can't even get her out of town safely. She's out of the line of fire now, unless the shooter was able to keep up with Genie, and there's been no sign of him. Michael wants to stay clear until they can figure out what Laurie's story is."

"That might take quite a while, considering how long Agent Duff was about it. I don't think that she got anything useful out of Laurie."

"Yeah, well, I have more confidence in Michael and Maria. Is there anything else important enough for the middle of the night?"

Tess thought about that for a moment. "No. Meet you before school at the Crashdown?"

"Yeah, that's the plan. Isabel and Liz are going to be there, not sure about Alex."

"Okay." Tess punched the 'end' button vehemently and rolled over in bed.

#

By seven thirty, six of them were gathered around two tables pushed together - Isabel, Max and Liz, Tess, Kyle - and Alex. Isabel was looking ice daggers at Alex every chance she got.

Every kind of breakfast food seemed to be on at least one plate, and Kyle couldn't be bothered with thinking of the cute alien names for pancakes or waffles. Tess lowered her voice so only those at the table could hear her. "Any more word?"

"One quick call this morning," Isabel put in. "There was a lot of stuff on the morning news about how the town authorities are looking for Laurie. The window has closed for bringing her back to town. The last thing we want is for some deputy to recognize her and think that Michael was the one who buried her out in Frazier woods."

"Yeah," Max agreed. "Apparently she's so - agitated right now, Michael had to lock her inside the Jetta. He's tried to ask her about the crystals, about the aliens that she says are after her, but she hasn't said anything helpful."

"Maria's mom must be worried," Liz said. "I should swing by her place to check in - keep her from having to chase me down. Make it look like I've got nothing to hide."

"Are you going to let her know that you've heard from Maria?" Isabel asked.

"Yeah, Maria told me that she sent her Mom a text in the middle of the night, actually. That she'd gone camping with friends. I can say that I heard the same thing."

"I don't like the idea of you going there by yourself, with Sean DeLuca around," Kyle said. "Maybe bring Max, to defend your honour."

"No, come on, you're being silly. Whatever Sean thought about me, it's ancient history. And I don't want Amy to think that Max is involved with this at all."

"Why would she think that he's involved, just because he came with you?" Isabel snapped. "He's your boyfriend, after all."

"I don't know, there may be something to that," Tess said reluctantly. "It sounded like she's starting to get concerned about some of the stuff that's going around. If Liz's boyfriend is there, at least it'll make her think that Liz is more concerned by Maria's sudden departure, which kind of undercuts the point of selling the camping explanation."

"And what does it say to her if Kyle comes along with me?" Liz asked. I shrugged. "All right, I guess you might as well come, Kyle, to help defend my honour if Sean tries something."

"Okay, is there any other business?" Alex asked.

"Not yet," Max decided. "I have a few ideas for finding out more about Frazier woods and those crystals, things seemed too risky when I first thought of them. Now we need to play a riskier game. But they'll have to wait until school's out for the weekend."

"Gotcha," Tess said. "Do we meet here at five?"

"No. Isabel, Liz, I'll talk with you in the school parking lot, quarter to four. Everybody else, just keep an eye on your phones, and we'll be in touch. Got it?"

"Yes, sir." Kyle snapped off a salute, and Tess nudged him with her elbow.

#

"Hey, Tess?" Max asked guardedly as he noticed her wandering up towards the Jeep, in the parking lot of the Crashdown.

"Well, I was wondering if it wouldn't be too awkward to ask for a ride," she said. "Kyle just gave Liz a lift to Amy DeLuca's place, since she doesn't have a car, but I came here with him, so..."

"Oh, right." Max laughed. "It's silly of me not to have offered, except - well, I guess I'm used to you driving yourself."

"So am I," Tess agreed. "But a lot of things have changed since Valentine's Day."

"Well, if you're going to come, then come." Max gestured to the back seat. Isabel was on the passenger side, and hadn't said anything during the conversation, though she'd been watching Tess intently.

"So, Tess, just out of curiosity," Isabel said as Max pulled out onto the street. "Did you think about asking Alex to drive you to school? Since he's got a car too, I mean."

"Well, I guess it occurred to me," Tess said. "Despite the awkwardness here, I guess I'd have felt even less comfortable presuming on Alex for a favour - and before you say it, it's not because I think of him as 'one of them, not one of us' or anything like that. I just - well, I still haven't gotten to know him that well. I'd like to change that, actually."

"Okay." Isabel turned her head so that she could Tess sidelong. "Did you know that he was really upset with you when you first came to town? I mean, even before you arranged to have Max kiss you in the rain."

"Really?" Tess had to think about that. "What did I do to upset Alex that quickly? I remember teasing you at your locker about if you liked him - and dropping some hints about how much Max was my type." Isabel shook her head, long golden hair whipping around in the wind. "Wait a second. Was it because he was always around when I was trying to get to know you?"

"Not just that he was always around." Isabel sighed, a bit forlornly. "You showed quite a talent that week for showing up just when he was working up his courage to actually make a move - on the conversational level. I wondered if that was deliberate, if you were trying to derail the Alex and I from becoming a couple because of your own agenda."

"No," Tess insisted. "I mean, I thought that you and Michael belonged together, just like I thought Max was supposed to end up with me, but... well, ehh." Tess groaned, not wanting this conversation to go down the track of when she had or hadn't meddled in Isabel and Michael's love lives. "So what's the deal with you and Alex now? I mean... are you just pissed with him because of the way he handled things, or do you want to get back together with him and stop hearing about this Leanna girl?"

"Huh?" Isabel exclaimed. "Well, I don't know, really." She sighed. "I - I miss Alex. Sometimes, yeah, I want him back, and sometimes I think that he's really been through enough crap with me, and if Swedish girl makes him happy, then I shouldn't interfere."

"Okay." Tess paused a moment, and then turned to face Max - or the back of Max's seat, at least. "Max, this may sound like a stupid question now, but are the two of us good? After all that's happened, I mean?"

Max considered that. "We're doing better than we were before Valentine's Day, Tess. I consider you part of the gang, and I do want to become closer friends with you. But - but Liz is still a bit touchy about the history that the two of us have, and so it's going to be hard for you and I to hang out much - until she gets more comfortable with you, and with the idea of you being satisfied with Kyle, I suppose."

"Okay, that makes sense." Tess chuckled. "We could double-date sometime - you and Liz, Kyle and me. That sounds really comfortable, doesn't it?"

Max's groan was so loud that the pedestrians on the sidewalk heard an odd howling noise for a moment as the Jeep passed them by.


	4. Chapter 4

"I'm glad you could make it, Liz," Amy DeLuca said as Liz stepped into the living room. Maria's mother had arranged herself in the armchair that looked out the bay window, and had a big blue mug balanced on the narrower arm-rest. Kyle sniffed slightly, trying to catch the aroma of tea or herbs, but couldn't pick out any one scent - the DeLuca house was a riot of aromatherapy this morning. "And I'm surprised to see you again, Kyle. Not looking to find Maria here, are you?"

"No, of course not, Ms DeLuca," Kyle said, picking his words carefully, remembering what Liz had said about not wanting to get Amy more worried about her daughter. "I just thought that you might appreciate seeing a familiar face at the moment, after Maria ditched off to go play nature games with Guerin." Liz tried to poke Kyle in the side with her elbow, but they hadn't been standing quite close enough for her to reach, so she turned her head and glared at him. "Don't look at me like that, Liz - she's my friend too, but let's call a spade a spade. She's gone camping for the weekend starting on a Friday morning, and Michael isn't in town either. I don't think it's co-incidence."

"Thank you for not patronizing me, Kyle," Amy drawled. "And why do you think that Maria decided to go 'camping', Liz?"

"I'm not sure," Liz admitted, blushing and sitting down on the brown sofa. Kyle took a seat as well, on the far side of the same piece of furniture, just in case she tried to throw more serious violence his way. "I have to admit, it's very likely that she's with Michael. Maybe I'm even hoping that they're together, that she hasn't taken off by herself."

"Now that's a reaction I hadn't expected from you," Amy admitted. "Do you really think that Michael's able to keep my daughter safe?"

"Yes," Liz replied right away. "I realize that you may be frightened about the way Michael and Maria feel about each other. I'm pretty sure that it frightens both of them too. But no matter whether Michael would rather kiss Maria or pretend that he doesn't care this week, he would never let anything or anybody hurt her, and that is something that she needs in her life right now."

"Okay," Amy said. "Has she called you?"

"Yeah, before breakfast, but we didn't talk for long," Liz said. Kyle tried not to smile, noticing how clever Liz had become about misdirection without having to tell a lie.

"And what about you and Max?" Amy asked.

"Huh? What are you asking me about us?"

"Are you scared of your feelings?" Amy asked. "You don't have to answer for Max if you haven't talked to him about it."

"But I have to give you an answer?" Liz challenged. Amy's shoulders lifted and fell. "Hmm..." Liz considered the question without any resentment on her face. "I'm... not, at least not as much as I used to be last year. Maybe we've gone through so much that it's driven away the fear. Then again - I don't know, maybe it's just become a healthier fear, the kind that's not far away from respect. Does that make any sense?"

"Quite a lot, actually. And what about you, Kyle?" Amy turned to look at him.

"I'm not afraid of Liz and Max," Kyle blurted out, surprised. That set Liz off in giggles.

"Not quite. I was asking about - what's started happening between yourself and Tess."

Tess thought about going into his room to comfort Tess when she'd had the nightmare, and biking out in the desert with her, and what it felt like when she was pressing herself tightly into his arms, their lips locked... "Yes, I love it but there's something wild about Tess. I'm not sure if it really has anything to do with her being..."

"Ahh!" Liz exclaimed, and Kyle just managed to catch himself before saying the forbidden word. Amy was looking back and forth between them now, the edges of her mouth pulled down slightly in a little frown.

"An army brat," Kyle finished after taking a deep breath. "Why didn't you want me to say that, Liz?"

"Oh, sorry, I thought you were going to say something... much ruder and not very sensitive about your girlfriend," Liz rhymed off airily. "And since I'm trying to be good friends with her for Max's sake, I didn't really want you to say it."

"Hey, do I really strike you as the kind of guy to say, umm, that kind of word about any girl?" Kyle said. "Really? I'm offended if you say yes."

"Well, no, not really," Liz admitted. "It just sort of popped into my own head, because... because it's the sort of thing I would have liked to think when we were feuding, over Max." She looked over at Amy, and their eyes locked. "Just what are you thinking about, sitting over there by yourself and not saying much, Miz DeLuca?"

"Well, trying to sort through all of the new things that I'm learning about Tess Harding this morning," Amy said. "And I hope that she wouldn't be upset that we ended up talking about her behind her back. With that in mind, you can refuse to say anything more until she's around, but - Tess' father was in the Army? I don't think that I've heard that before."

"Not really," Liz allowed. "What she told me, at least, is that he was a civilian contractor, but she seems to have had the army brat childhood, moving from base to base to base frequently. I suppose that explains some of the more... flamboyant aspects of her personality. She's used to being the new girl at school, so she's learned to make a splash and get noticed. Usually she attracts the attention of somebody who likes her and wants to be friends - like Isabel."

"Yeah, that fits," Kyle said. "And most of the time she moved on before having to face the consequences of making enemies."

"I see," Amy said. "And does this relate to why you were feuding with her, and taking joy in calling her mean names in your mind, Liz? Tess told me yesterday that she was trying to make Max her boyfriend, until you and Kyle made your Valentine's Day pact."

"Yeah, I guess that's most of it," Liz admitted, with a sigh. "Even when I'd backed off from Max and he wasn't with Tess, I guess I resented her because she'd caused trouble between the two of us. I wanted to give him a chance to really make up his own mind, to be with Tess if he came to feel that was what he really wanted, but... Okay, that's it, I'm not going to bare my heart any more."

There was a long moment of silence. "Oh, look at the time that we've spent gossiping about old heartaches and relationship fears," Kyle muttered. "We're going to be late for first period."

"Oh, I'm really sorry!" Amy exclaimed. "Go, go, go! Will it help if I write a note?"

"That would take too long to explain," Liz said. "Actually, I think we might make the final bell. Come on, Kyle." She nearly pulled him out the door, waving back at Amy with the other hand.

"I know this sounds kind of weird," Liz mumbled as he sped off towards the school, "and I'm not trying to fish for a compliment really, but do you ever think about the time that we were dating?"

"Well, sure, I guess. It was a great time in my life, but - but I knew that day I crept into the UFO center that there would be no going back to those days."

"Really?" Liz laughed. "That - that's the moment that you finally figured it out, really?"

"I guess so - it's the first time I remember saying it to myself." Kyle sighed. "I was talking to myself out loud, actually, about why I was doing so crazy, and asked if I really thought I'd get you back if I saved you from some dangerous situation involving Max and the FBI." He shrugged awkwardly.

"Well... umm, I'm glad that at least we're friends now," Liz said, and gave him a slightly awkward smile.

"I am too. Something tells me that with Tess in my life, I might need all the friends I can get," Kyle said, and Liz giggled.

#

As Max, Isabel, and Tess got out of the Jeep and headed towards the doors of the high school, nobody said anything. Tess tried to think of something non-threatening that she could break the silence, but for many paces she couldn't think of anything.

"What the..." Max breathed in a soft, really annoyed voice, cutting himself off just short of an obvious profanity. Max really wasn't the swearing type, Tess knew. "Somebody in that crowd near the steps really doesn't belong - and he's spotted us. Play it cool."

"Who's spotted us?" Tess muttered. She ran through possibilities with her eyes and her mind at the same time. Bobby Benedict didn't seem to be paying them any attention - it couldn't be Michael, back in town? No, he wouldn't be here, and Max wouldn't have reacted like this to his best friend anyway. Could it be Grant Sorenson, here to cause more trouble?

And then she saw the man in question too, and nearly forgot to put her foot down in the right spot where she could balance on it. "What's Sheriff Hanson doing here?"

"Cool," Isabel repeated icily, and Tess did her best to pretend that she hadn't seen Tim Hanson, since that was what she figured would best fit the bill of 'playing it cool' in this situation. Max and Isabel also affected a similar blind spot, until he was pretty much blocking their way and keeping up the act would be hard to credit. "Oh, hello there Mister Hanson," Isabel said, coming to a sudden stop. "Or should I call you Sherriff, now?"

"Either will do, thanks," Hanson drawled, and actually lifted his cowboy hat for a moment, holding it at an angle above his head and then taking care to set it down straight again. "Mister Evans, Miss Evans, I'm sorry to pull you away from classes like this, but Special Agent Duff would like to speak to you both right away."

"About what?" Max asked.

"Well, I'm not sure, but I imagine that Laurie Dupree will be mentioned."

"Right, I heard about that," Isabel said. "She's disappeared again, right? I've got to say, this time, I have no idea where to."

"Yeah, but we'd better just go along," Max said. "Tess, can you make sure to get my geometry? And let Alex know to look for me in second period."

Tess considered for a moment. It had become routine for her to look at anything that Max or one of her friends said in front of somebody who didn't know the whole truth about them, to examine each phrase for double meanings. The only possible secret she could find this time was 'Don't bother trying to come with us.' So she wouldn't.

"Yeah, we'll take care of you, Max. Go do what you gotta do."

"Thanks," he muttered, and Max and Isabel followed Hanson to the sheriff's squad car parked in the nearest corner of the faculty lot.

#

"Alex! There you are!" Tess exclaimed, seeing him across the hallway. "Max is in your second period history class, right?" She waved at the door next to her.

"Yeah, why?"

"I'm not sure if he'll make it partway through, or not. Hanson took him, and Isabel, to talk with Agent Duff before the bell rang."

"Oh." Alex thought about that. "And he wanted you to tell me that?"

"Yeah, he was pretending that he wanted homework for his classes - at least, I think that was pretending. I got the geometry notes, just in case."

"I got it. Isabel didn't ask about homework?"

"No - but she has her senior AP classes all morning, and none of us share a class with her."

"Did you spread the word?"

"I haven't seen anybody else but you - and I guess with Michael and Maria off on the road, it's just Liz and Kyle left."

"I'll let Liz know after second," Alex said. "Thanks."

"You're welcome," she told him, and rushed off towards the girl's changing rooms for Phys Ed.

#

Kyle didn't spot Tess in the halls until after third period, and he smiled, remembering that they both had fourth period lunch this term. "Hey, you're hanging in okay?" he asked in a quiet whisper as he drew close to her, matching step.

"I'm a little shaky," Tess admitted. "Hanson took Max and Isabel to meet with Agent Duff. What about you and Liz with Maria's mom, how did that go?"

"Umm... well enough. She ended up asking questions about you, and how you came to town. I let Liz take the lead with the explanations, and I don't think Amy suspects anything really; she was just curious, and trying to distract herself from worrying about Maria." Kyle took a deep breath. "Hey, how about you and I go off-campus to eat? We could grab some slices at Hot Tony's, I know you like it there. They even have Tabasco available for sprinkling."

Tess looked up at him. "Thanks for the offer. But, I feel like I should stay around school, until I know how Max and Isabel are doing."

"Are you sure?" Kyle pressed. "If they're back by now, they won't be on lunch break yet."

"Well, no, they won't," Tess admitted. "But they might look for me in the cafeteria on the way back, or somebody might relay a message. I just... I just don't want to be harder to reach right now, okay?"

"Sure." Kyle leaned down enough to kiss Tess on the cheek. "Mystery meat, here we come."

"Actually, I think that they have chicken strips on Fridays, though they're not the standard for fine dining." Tess wrapped an arm tightly around Kyle's waist. "I'll figure out some way of expressing my gratitude to you for enduring cafeteria food to be with me."

#

Liz passed Tess a note in English Lit, fifth period, which read: 'Max and Isabel got to school late, but everything's okay. Meet you at the parking lot gate, 3:30?' She tried to be reassured by that, and focus on her classes until the end of the school day.

She looked around for Kyle in the hallways before going outside after her last class, but there was no sign of him, and as she approached the parking lot, she found out that he was already there, talking with Alex, as Isabel stood frostily watching. Didn't it just figure that Max and Liz would be late - probably they were off in the Eraser Room or something like that.

So she went up to Isabel. "What did Agent Duff want?"

"Oh, she asked me a lot more questions about the time we found Laurie out in the woods, and when she ran away from the hospital to go to Valenti's place, that sort of thing. I think she was just fishing, trying to figure out if either of us had anything to do with this latest disappearing act. I'm just glad that I turned my phone off on the way to the Sheriff's station - Michael tried to call me, and it would have been awkward if the phone rang while I was with Duff."

Tess chuckled, even though none of this was really funny. "What did Michael have to say? Did he leave a message?"

"Let's see... they went to this crappy diner way out in the middle of nowhere, Laurie tried to run away from them there, and she's still not saying much." Isabel sighed.

"Great. So we haven't learned anything new today?"

"Well, maybe you should wait on that conclusion until Max and Liz get here."

"Yeah, that could take all afternoon."

"Or not." Isabel pointed off toward the far end, and Tess turned to look. Yes, there were young Mister Evans and Miss Parker, coming towards them at a brisk promenade, holding hands and smiling. Tess stepped closer to Kyle before even realizing that was where she wanted to be.

"Isabel says that you've both got something to tell us," Alex said as Max and Liz got within easy earshot. "Who first - Max?"

"Okay, I'll take my turn, and save the best for last. I've spotted Grant Sorenson again." Tess and Kyle groaned nearly in unison, and Isabel let out a sigh. "He came in to talk to Hanson while Isabel was with Agent Duff. Brought a gun, a big rifle that he said he'd found out in Frazier woods, near where Laurie was buried."

"Like the gun that the abductor shot at you with?" Tess asked, and Max did something that was halfway between nodding and shrugging. "But - but somebody shot at Laurie when they were taking her out of town, and we were thinking that was the same person. The site of that shooting wasn't near the woods, was it?"

"It wasn't in the news reports," Kyle muttered.

"No, and I don't think that Maria said where," Liz said. "We can ask."

"But somebody said that they were taking Laurie back to Texas," Alex pointed out. "And Frazier Woods is on the wrong side of town for that."

"Yeah, it doesn't add up to anything yet," Max agreed. "Maybe we'll be able to get somewhere, though." There was an awkward silence. "Okay, sweetie, your turn," he continued, nodding at Liz.

"Okay, at lunch, I started thinking about a few things. Those cells from the crystals that I was looking at under the microscope - they look a bit like parasites in the biology books, which infect a South Atlantic fish. But these crystals haven't tried to infect humans that have handled them - and though one of them reacted to Max that one time, he doesn't seem to be any the worse for it. So - what life-forms and environments do the crystals react to?"

"Laurie, and/or Frazier woods," Tess suggested.

"Right," Liz said, nodding enthusiastically. "Michael and Maria are with Laurie, and trying to find out more about her, though it sounds like they haven't had much luck yet. Michael and Isabel found out a few things about her in Texas. So how can we find out more about Frazier woods?" There was a pause. "We have somebody here in Roswell who seems to be an expert on them."

"Wait a second, no way," Isabel complained. "You can't ask me to go and charm Grant Sorenson again - not after I sent Valenti after him." Liz shrugged, and looked around at the rest of them.

"You don't want either of us talking to Mister Sorenson either, I think," Tess muttered, taking Kyle's hand in her hand to make quite clear who she meant by 'us'.

"Maybe that should be you, Liz," Alex suggested. "He'd know that Max is Isabel's brother, and... well, I think that he might remember me too."

"How?" Isabel asked. "He wasn't still at my birthday party when you... gave me your present, Alex." She blushed slightly at the memory, and Alex shook his head.

"Not that. Last fall before I left for Sweden - well, I tracked him down and got some stuff off my chest, which really wasn't his fault - because you were ducking me that week."

"Oh, okay." Isabel smiled slightly to herself with this revelation.

"Don't look so smug about it," Alex warned. "I'm not still that pathetic shell of a boy anymore; it's a new year and I'm a new man."

"Moving onward and back on the track," Max said. "Liz, are you up for trying to ask Grant some questions about Frazier woods?"

"Sure, I guess," Liz said. "I might have the opposite problem from the rest of you guys, that he wouldn't recognize me enough. I think I met him once, back when I was working for Whittaker, because she asked him to her office to talk about those bones, so I got him coffee. But..." She shrugged.

"Just do what you can," Kyle suggested. "Working up a subtle angle may be wasted effort, you could just say that you're interested in geology as a career path and have a few questions for him."

"Okay, yeah." Liz smiled at him.

"So, is there anything else we can do to figure out more about the situation?" Alex asked. "Grant Sorenson seems like a pretty slim source to be relying on."

"Well, we can add slimmer to slim," Isabel said, shaking her head. "Max, I know that you didn't want to try talking to Brody about this kind of thing before, but..."

"You mean talking to Larek," Max said, his mouth deepening into a scowl.

"Wait a second, who's Larek?" Kyle asked, seeing that Tess, Liz, and Alex were all reacting to the name. "Did I hear about this part?"

"Not yet I think, sweetie," Tess said. "It happened last fall. But listen, we probably shouldn't stand around here talking any more. We can go somewhere else."

"Okay, but does anybody have an idea where I'll be able to find our friendly neighbourhood geologist on a Friday evening?" Liz asked.

"That'd be me," Isabel said, actually waving.

"You just want to get out of having to defend your point of view in the Larek discussion," Max complained.

"Hey, if you speak your piece first, then I'm actually at a disadvantage," Isabel replied. "I'll face the music when I can, I promise." She turned to Liz. "If Max lends me the keys, I can drive you over to my place, and we'll plan strategy. Is that okay?"

"Sure," Liz said. "See you soon, sweetie." She gave Max a tender kiss. "And cough them up." Regretfully, Max produced a key ring and handed it to Liz, who passed the keys along to Isabel.

"So, how about you boys come with me, we can chat comfortably around the Sheriff's table," Tess suggested.

"Are there enough chairs for all of us?" Alex asked with a smile.

"Yeah, for a little while now," Kyle said, and smiled over towards Tess.

#

"Okay, so, Larek," Tess said, once they were all arranged with choice snack food and beverages. "When Max and I were in New York, we saw Brody Davis, the owner of the UFO center here in Roswell, but he didn't act like Brody, or recognize the name. He called himself Larek, instead, and negotiated at the Summit on behalf of an alien planet."

"Oh, right, you did tell me a little about that," Kyle reminded her. "That there were people who were 'abductees', with aliens joy-riding in their bodies for a little while. Larek was one of the joy-riders?"

"It seems so," Max agreed.

"Maria spotted Brody here in Roswell, about half a day before the Summit started," Alex pointed out. "She said that he didn't seem to recognize her or his name either, just kept on walking as if she weren't calling out to him. We think that was just after Larek arrived on Earth - he was still orienting, but knew that he had to get from Roswell to New York as quickly as he could."

"And at the Summit - well, Larek was the friendliest of the planetary leaders, by a long way," Max said. "He said that he'd been childhood friends with King Zan... you know who Zan was, right Kyle?"

"Yeah, the royal alien whose soul you supposedly inherited," Kyle said, nodding. "Tess filled me in on that part of the back-story, at length."

"I can imagine," Max muttered.

"Wait a second, am I missing something?" Alex asked. "Why did you tell him so much of that, Tess?"

"Well, because I was living with Kyle, and upset about the fact that Max wasn't getting with the destiny program, as I saw it," Tess said. "So I wanted to be able to complain and rant about it, and it wasn't as satisfying if Kyle didn't understand what I was ranting about, so I made sure that he could follow the reasons that I thought Max and I were supposed to end up together - whether he wanted to know or not."

"Okay, I got it," Alex said, and took a sip of his Diet Sprite.

"So, now, my big question," Kyle said. "Why are you and Isabel acting as if Larek is an available resource at this point, Max? I mean, he might be a friendly alien, but the way I understand this abduction thing, it's entirely under Larek's control. He can drop by Roswell any time he pleases and abduct Brody's body, but you can't just send him a Bat-signal and let him know that he's needed, right?"

"Well, that's the nub of the disagreement," Max said. "After I told Isabel about what Tess and I had seen in New York, she was very interested in the abduction stuff, and started working on the idea over the holidays. She even tried to backseat drive in Tess' body once, apparently, but that didn't work out too well, and none of us want to try that again until we can find somebody who knows how to explain how to do it."

"I didn't get my vote on that, but I'd definitely agree with the consensus," Alex said.

"But there's another idea that Isabel had," Max continued. "She's convinced that for the whole thing to work, Larek must have left some of his memories and other mental faculties in Brody Davis' subconscious, and maybe what she calls a low-level interstellar psychic link between the two of them."

"Oh, I think I get it now," Kyle said. "Isabel can work with subconscious minds. She's peeked into my dreams, and Liz's, and she's gotten inside your brain, Max, even when you weren't sleeping, right?" Max nodded uncomfortably. "So if she dream-walks Brody, she could maybe activate Larek's link, and abduct Larek, bringing him here to Earth, even if he doesn't want to come. But none of us want to do that unless it's a serious emergency, because Larek will probably be pissed."

"Yeah, that's about it," Max said. "After we found out that Michael and Maria left town, Isabel tried dream-walking Brody last night. She could get into his dreams, and said that she saw alien memories in them, but couldn't get through to the link, or find out just how many alien memories Brody has access to. This morning, she says that she's convinced she could do more if she was touching Brody, and he was relaxed, with his natural defences down."

"That sounds like a tall order," Tess said. "Brody's kind of a naturally defensive guy."

"I don't know, I can think of something that might be worth a try," Alex said. "That is, if we believe Isabel when she says that she can do this, and that it's worth trying."

Max blinked, and turned to Tess and Kyle. "Do you guys believe?"

Kyle shrugged. "I'd like to hear her side of this, but I'm not dismissing the idea out of hand. I've seen too much crazy alien stuff actually happen."

"Yeah," Tess agreed. "I've wanted Isabel to open up her own defences and push the boundaries of what she thought she was capable of. This is - well, it's certainly an interesting idea, though I didn't think it would be possible when I met Larek and the other Summit delegates."

"Okay." Max sighed. "Well, I think that we've exhausted the topic at hand. Is there any other club business to bring up at this time?"

About half a dozen glances were exchanged. "No, I think not," Alex drawled.

"I hope not," Tess added. "Max, there's nothing that you need me or Kyle for tonight, is there?"

Max smiled. "No, but stay near a cell phone, just in case?"

"Can do." She looked over at Kyle. "Do you have any ideas?"

Kyle thought about that. "How about a quiet night in, watching a movie or something?" Something nagged at him about that idea, and he looked around. "Okay, why isn't my dad home now?"

Tess thought about that one. "Did he mention anything to you about how his job interview went at that chemicals place?"

"No, actually, he didn't. When we talked with him last night, he was worried about Michael and Maria, so I didn't even think to ask. Dammit."

"We should give him a call," Alex said. "Kyle, what's his cell number?"

"Uh - dammit, again," Kyle mumbled.

"I've got it," Max said, pulling out his own cell phone. Kyle glared at him. "Well, I do, and I realize you're not happy about why, but I'm calling." As Max hit the button to dial out of his directory, Kyle held out his hand for the phone, and Max passed it over without hesitation.

It was a little while before Kyle talked into the phone, and when he did, the words came in a rush. "Hi, Dad, it's Kyle calling from Max's phone, long story. Just wondered what's up with you, and if you got the Metachem job. Call any number you think will get through to me." He hung up Max's phone and handed it back.

"Okay, now I'm officially worried," Tess said. "Where else can we look for him?"


	5. Chapter 5

"Don't get too concerned, guys," Max said. "Alex and I can go around looking for Jim if you want us to, but don't let this ruin your night in..."

"Give me the phone." Alex held out his hand expectantly. Kyle passed over Max's cell first, then caught himself, returned that to Max, and offered Alex the cordless handset. Alex tapped out a number quickly.

There was a fairly long pause before he spoke. "Good evening, it's Alex... No, no word from Maria, I'm sorry... Actually, I called for the opposite reason. I'm here at the Valenti's place with Kyle and Tess, and Tess just wanted to make sure that Kyle's dad was accounted for..." There was another longish pause, and Alex smiled. "Yeah." He took the mouthpiece away from his head and put his free hand over it. "So, Mister Valenti is over at the DeLuca's, they're having a night in of their own and Jim is keeping Amy company. Do any of you need to talk with him direct?"

Tess shook her head, smiling brightly, and Kyle shrugged. Alex was uncovering the mouthpiece when Max held out his own hand for the phone, so Alex shrugged too and handed it over. "Hi, Mister V," Max said quietly. "It's not that important, but I'd like to chat with you at a convenient time. Liz had a few thoughts about - about whoever kidnapped Laurie, and Frazier woods..." He paused, deep in thought for a moment. "Right, yeah, that'll be okay. Oh - there's something I have to tell you about Brody Davis... No, no, he's not a suspect or anything like that... Yeah, goodbye."

"Thanks for thinking of that, Alex," Tess said. "I should have clued in myself."

"I just hope that we didn't interrupt anything important," Kyle added. "I mean, if he turned his cell phone off..."

"If the two of them really wanted to not be disturbed, they could have turned off the ringer on the house phone," Tess said. "But then we'd still be anxious."

"And I guess Amy wouldn't have wanted to risk missing a call from Maria," Alex guessed. "Okay, this is the point where we get out of the way and let the two of you have the house."

"Thanks, man. For everything," Kyle told him.

"You're welcome. So, where to next, Max?"

"Um - My place. Maybe we can intercept the girls before Liz goes out on her fact-finding mission." Alex nodded and closed the front door behind them.

Tess turned to Kyle. "And what's next for us?"

"We'll need food, first of all," Kyle said. "Order in pizza?"

"How about Thai?" Tess bent her head down slightly so as to peer up at him through eyelashes.

Kyle thought about that. "I'll give it a try, this time."

"Thanks."

"And if it sucks, I think that there's some leftover spaghetti and meatballs in the fridge."

Tess rolled her eyes as she picked up the phone again.

#

The Thai food was pretty good, though Kyle couldn't deal with as much of the hot sauce as Tess liked. They both enjoyed the DVD movie, a comedy adventure about a ragtag gang of vampires determined to save the world even though everybody assumes that they're the bad guys - including other bad guys.

The last of the food had all been nibbled to destruction and Kyle and Tess were paying more attention to kissing than listening to the dialog when Kyle's cell rang. It took ten seconds before he bothered answering it, and snapped out "What is it now?" Tess sighed and paused the DVD.

"Kyle, it's Liz." Liz sounded worried enough to decrease Kyle's frustration at the interruption. "Listen, this is a long shot, but Grant isn't over there, is he? Giving you or your Dad a hard time or anything?"

"Grant?" Kyle repeated under his breath. "Over here? No, there's nobody here but Tess and I. What made you call up and ask?"

"Well, it's just, Isabel and I can't track him down in any of the usual places that we'd expect, and I remembered you mentioning that he was pissed at you for that bike thing. So I thought it was worth a shot. Sorry for disturbing..."

"Wait!" Tess hissed intently. Her eyes were closed, and her arms were waving to and fro, in a way that gave Kyle the creeping chills. "He's out there somewhere - not far."

"Just a minute, Liz," Kyle put in, and when Liz stopped talking he realized that she'd been talking at the same time as Tess, and he had only been listening to his girlfriend. "Tess thinks that he might be lurking around here." He took the phone away from his mouth just a little. "How can you tell? Do you sense his mind with your alien powers or something?"

"It's something like that," Tess muttered. "Not like anything I've ever sensed before - but I'm sure that he's near. God, what does he think he's accomplishing, stalking us in the darkness?"

"I don't know," Kyle muttered. "But I'm pretty sure that this kind of harassment is an open invitation to an ass-kicking that'd even stand up in court." He put the phone down and stood up.

Tess rose from the couch just in time to block him from the door, (and she was a soft and delightful body-block to run into, too.) "Another time, I'd agree with you, Kyle, but not when we need his help with the alien crystal thing. You just let Liz and I handle this, okay? Promise me?"

Kyle hesitated. "You're not going to get close to him yourself, Tess? I mean, I know that you can take care of yourself, but he doesn't like either of us, and if he gets any notion of how you're different..."

"No, of course not," Tess told him. "I'll just narrow down the where, and let Liz handle the approach."

Kyle considered. "Okay..." He considered what he could do to keep busy while Tess would be occupied with this little mission. "I guess I'll hit the john first, okay? I promise I won't go outside, until the Grant thing is taken care of. But if he comes in the house, then all bets are off."

"Okay, that should be good enough." Tess kissed him on the cheek, and then bent down to pick up the phone. "Hey, Liz, it's me. How far are you from my borrowed home?" Kyle shrugged, and headed down the hallway to the bathroom.

#

By the time Tess had managed to guide Liz to her rendezvous with Grant Sorenson, Kyle had made up a small pot of decaf au lait, and played two boards of computer games. When Tess wandered into the living room, somehow Kyle could tell just by looking at her that she wouldn't be up for resuming either the movie or the make-out session. So he saved the game, went over to the couch, and offered her a cup of the coffee.

"Thanks, yeah." Tess took a big swallow, made a face, and put the mug down at the far corner of the end table. "So, umm..."

"This sort of thing is probably going to keep popping up in our lives, isn't it?" Kyle said, with a sigh. "I mean, there's been FBI special agents, murder charges, mysterious UFO experts, killer Congresswomen, the Skin secret societies, long-lost twins suddenly showing up..."

"It doesn't show any sign of slowing down so far, no," Tess agreed sadly. "Probably I'm the one who's a lighting rod for alien trouble as much as anybody and you're just getting hit because you happen to be nearby." She gazed into his eyes. "If you wanted to make yourself scarce because you couldn't handle the alien abyss, I wouldn't blame you for that choice."

"Right." Kyle shook hi head. "If I was at all inclined to book out, then implying that it's on account of fear would be the best thing that you could do to keep Kyle Valenti around - just for reference."

"Oh." Tess reached out to hold his hand. "Is that one of the macho things?"

"Pretty much, yeah. Can't help it, won't apologize."

"I wouldn't want you to," Tess sighed. "And I'm glad to hear that I don't even need to appeal to the macho mentality for you to deal with my craziness. Not that I was talking about being crazy myself, though I suppose in some ways you could make a good case, as well as that there's craziness that surrounds me..."

"Tess?"

"Yeah."

"You can stop babbling now." And to make the point, Kyle leaned close and kissed her.

#

It was less than fifteen minutes before a phone rang again - this time, Tess'. "Yeah, hello, who is it now?" she asked.

"Michael Guerin checking in," he said. "Is something wrong back in Roswell?"

Tess crawled off Kyle's lap, and he looked over at her and shook his head slightly. "Not really. Kyle and I are trying to have a movie night and people keep interrupting - but I did really want to hear from you, Michael. What's up?"

"We just crossed the Arizona state line," he said. "Laurie said that we could talk to her mysterious grandfather in Tucson. You know: the one who looked a lot like me, when he was young at least."

"Didn't she completely freak out when she saw you for the first time and run straight back to the FBI because her grandfather was dead, so she thought that you were a zombie or something?"

"Yeah, ," Michael agreed. "She's not exactly consistent about her stories. But Tucson seems to be where the grandfather lived, and she might have family here, though the FBI apparently didn't find out about them. Bottom line, it's a lead, and if it doesn't pan out, we'll figure out what to do next."

"Okay." Tess thought for a moment. "How's Maria holding up?"

"Her temper's a little short; this certainly isn't her idea of a dream road trip. But aside from that, I guess she's doing fine. I'm a little surprised to hear you asking after her."

"What, you think that I'm never concerned about humans?" Tess teased back. "My horizons have broadened recently, and I'm trying to keep broadening them."

"Cool... So, what's going on in Roswell?"

"Let's see - when did you last check in?"

"Just before school let out. Max told me about getting interrogated."

"Okay, well, Liz is talking to Grant Sorenson about Frazier woods and trying to figure out why alien crystals would be hanging out there. And Isabel was suggesting that she could use Brody Davis to phone home to Larek, but I don't know if Max has given her the go-ahead on that plan yet."

"Hmm... okay. I just wish I knew what the connection was between Laurie and her handsome grandfather, and those blue alien crystals."

"You and me both," Tess said, chuckling at the way Michael had put it. "So, is that it, or do you want to talk for longer?" Her phone beeped twice. "Oh, I have another call coming in."

"I'll check in again soon," Michael said quickly. "Bye, say hi to Larek for me if you get in touch."

Tess shook her head slightly, since Michael had never met Larek before, and touched the button to switch to the incoming call. "Tess Harding here, hello?"

"Hi Tess, it's Isabel here. Listen, can you come down to the UFO center?"

"Yeah, in another ten minutes or so I guess. Are you actually going to try the Larek trick?"

"Yes. Max agreed to let me try, if you were nearby. He said that since you know more about alien powers than any of us, you might see a danger sign or know what to do if something goes wrong."

Tess shook her head in bemusement at that sign of trust from Max Evans, but couldn't find an objection to his reasoning, especially considering her own somewhat unexpected Czechoslovakian event with Grant Sorenson earlier. That reminded her... "Have you heard from Liz? Is she done with Grant Sorenson?"

"Not finished talking yet, but I just left them in the Crashdown. I don't think he noticed that I was there, and he was saying a bunch of stuff about the high water table out in Frazier woods that made me feel nervous. If there are alien life forms down there in the underground rivers - what if they find their way into the public water source?"

"Ooh, yeah, that's not a comforting thought," Tess agreed. She stood up, straightened clothing somewhat, and made eye contact with Kyle. "The UFO center, I'll be there as soon as I can."

"Thank you."

"I understand how important it is." Tess hung up the phone at that point and cocked her head slightly at Kyle. "What do you think, want to come along?"

"Get a chance to see Isabel turn the UFO center multi-millionaire into an alien body snatcher?" Kyle summarized. "Yeah, I'm so there. Anything you need before we roll wheels?"

Tess looked back and forth as if expecting to see something obvious that she needed to pick up. Nothing suitable caught her eye. "Let's motor."

#

"I'm not sure if I'm comfortable with so many of your friends being around while you try to hypnotize me, Isabel," Brody Davis said as Tess and Kyle took their seats. "I mean, I welcome your help if you can manage to get further than a hypnotherapist has before, but my abduction experiences are very personal to me."

"Well, I want Tess to stay as my second, my assistant," Isabel insisted, looking around the UFO centre office. "Anybody else that you ask to leave, they're gone - but I hope I can convince you to trust in our discretion. We all know how to keep secrets."

Brody considered Max and Liz, sitting next to each other, and then Kyle. "Let's get underway then. But I've been told I have a high natural resistance to hypnotic trances."

"And if you believed it, then that resistance would become real," Isabel whispered. "The power of suggestibility can work against itself."

"Oh, give me a break," Brody shot back.

"Would you believe me if I told you that I have experienced several paranormal incidents?" Isabel asked, her voice still low and throaty. "That I've self-tested with a psi rating of medium to strong?"

"I have no idea what difference it would make to me if I did," Brody said.

"Don't you believe that psychic phenomenon could be real? You believe in alien abductions."

"I know that I was abducted."

"I know that I have the ability to touch somebody else's mind directly," Isabel insisted. "You don't have to call that a psychic power if you want, but it'll be easier for me to get through if you're open to the possibility."

"All right, all right, I'm open," Brody said, rolling his eyes slightly. "But..."

Isabel reached out, touched Brody's hand with hers, and he sagged slightly. "Concentrate on my voice, only on the sound of my voice," Isabel told him. "You can feel your eyelids getting heavy, as you fall gently down a deep hole of sleep - with padded walls and a comfy mattress at the bottom."

Kyle stifled a snicker, and wondered what Isabel would pull out of her butt next for her hypnotist routine, but there was a long silence instead. Finally Liz cleared her throat. "Isabel, what's happening?"

"He's out," Isabel muttered, sounding distracted. Her own eyes were closed, and there were lines of intense concentration on her face as she held tight to Brody's hand. "I'm pretty sure that I've found a place deep in Brody's subconscious mind that doesn't have anything to do with his ordinary life, but it's so tightly sealed that I can't find my way in."

"Right," Max said. "That does sound like it probably has something to do with Larek and getting abducted, but - don't risk hurting him just to get at it, okay?"

"You're just scared of what might happen if I let the genie out of the bottle, Max," Isabel accused, but without much feeling. "Tess, can you give this a try?"

"Yeah, sure." Tess brought her chair close to Brody's other side. "It's probably better if we're not both connecting to him at the same time, for this."

"Oh, okay," Isabel said. "He'll stay asleep for at least a minute after I let him go, but - dropping out in three, two, one..." Isabel let go, and Tess reached out to touch Brody's other arm just below the wrist. For a few seconds, Tess silently evaluated whatever she was sensing.

"Have you got anything?" Isabel pressed.

"Yes, I see the zone that you were talking about, and yes - it's structured to become dominant through direct external stimulation beyond the normal human senses - and also there's something like... if you don't trigger it in precisely the correct pattern, it just retreats into the background again. But there's no way to tell from observation what the right trigger is. It's like a password lock on an encrypted computer file."

"So there's no way to get to Larek from Brody?" Max summarized.

"Don't push it, Max," Liz warned him softly.

"Just a second... okay, there's one thing from the rest of Brody's mind that does lead into the Larek identity by itself - and as far as I can tell, it's a thought response of extremely heightened terror."

"That's ominous," Kyle muttered.

"Yeah," Isabel said. "Okay, I'm not going to insist that we ring that doorbell. Max, what do you think?"

"You have to give me the hard choices," Max grumbled. "Well, we've gone to all this trouble, and in a crazy way, it makes sense. If I was Larek, and I put in one way for Brody to call me back, instead of me choosing to come to Earth for my own reasons, it'd be when he was in really bad trouble. Hopefully he won't mind that we pulled the fire alarm."

"Are you sure, Max?" Tess muttered.

"Yes," Max said. "Count us down from ten, and then give Brody a big scare."

"Okay. Ten, nine..." Max surreptitiously edged Liz's chair behind his and away from Brody, and Isabel gave herself some clearance too, but Kyle couldn't bring himself to duck and cover when Tess was in the line of fire, as it were, so he arranged himself so that Tess was between him and Brody. "Two, one, and liftoff."

Brody groaned out loud, and there was an airless wind pushing Kyle backwards, but he immediately leaned forward to compensate and was able to keep his chair from toppling over. Tess wasn't so lucky - she'd placed her chair at an angle, instead of having it pointing straight towards Brody, and the invisible alien force boosted her right off the furniture. Luckily, all Kyle had to do to catch her was open up his arms and brace himself for the impact.

"What's going on?" Brody asked, looking around. "Max? What the void of space did you do to Brody?"

"Tess scared him," Max told Larek. "But we were trying to reach you - sorry about the imposition."

"You deliberately initiated an emergency contact?" Larek asked. "Max, there are reasons we make it hard for people like Brody to initiate interstellar contact from Earth-side - it's bloody dangerous for them." He felt over his chest - or Brody's chest. "Brody's having a heart attack, and he's not breathing right. I'm not sure if I can manage to..."

"Max," Tess shouted. "Help Brody."

"I - I can't use my powers on him," Max protested. "He'll notice the silver handprint."

"You don't need to heal him," Tess said. "Just keep his heart working for him."

Max got up, leaned close, and laid his hands on Brody's shoulders from behind. Larek immediately started breathing more deeply and evenly. "What's going on, Max?" Larek asked him. "I'm getting the notion that this wasn't an idle dare."

"Not at all," Isabel said. "There are blue crystals, in the ground and the ground water, near the crash site. They seem to be some kind of alien life form, and an alien is trying to kidnap this girl, Laurie, and bury her among the crystals."

"Hasn't anybody told you about the Gandarium from your ship?" Larek asked.

"Umm..." Max muttered.

"No, obviously not. Listen, I can't stay with Brody much longer, but this is very serious. All Earth, all humanity is in danger, and the four of you aren't safe either. I'll do what I can to get you better information to plan with, but - the infection could spread at any time. If you've got a way to leave the planet, Max, for Kraz' sake don't wait!"

And with those words, Brody Davis' eyes slammed shut and his head lolled back against Max. "Low-power stimulation isn't bringing him back!" Max said, panic creeping into his voice. "What do I do?"

But Liz was coming close, steely determination glinting in her brown eyes. "Get him out of the chair, flat on his back." Bemused, Max followed the instructions. "Kyle, I know you took lifeguard classes. You do chest compression."

Kyle got up. "And what, you're going to give him mouth-to-mouth?"

"Yes, and I don't want to hear any snickering or see a jealous expression on your face, Max. This is our best shot." And so saying, she bent over Brody's face and blew air down into his throat.

It only took half a minute or so before Brody came round, and then they had to figure out some way to explain to him what had happened during his 'hypnotic trance' that wouldn't make him more suspicious.

#

Kyle and Tess sat up late on her bed, eating Ben and Jerry's out of the little tubs and talking about what they'd heard from Larek. "Do you really think that this is it? The end of the world? I mean, that's something they only ever talk about on Buffy the vampire slayer or whatever."

Tess shrugged. "I don't know. He said that it was an infection, and some kind of alien plague spreading across the world - that could get nasty. On the other hand - as dire as the situation was, I tend to suspect that Larek was panicking. He'd been pulled out of his normal life, light-years or megaparsecs across space into a body that was dying. I don't think that I could be thinking clearly in a situation like that. But - oh, say, do you think I should call Michael? Let him know what we've found out so far about Laurie and her connection to this Frazier woods stuff?"

"Well, Max probably called him, or Liz called Maria, or both," Kyle said. "It doesn't make much sense to keep bombarding them with telephone calls. Plus, we don't really know that much yet."

"Okay," Tess agreed. "Anyway, I don't have any specifics, just - I feel as if there has to be some way for us to stop whatever-it-is from happening before it hurts many other people. Maybe Larek will actually come through for us and give a more detailed report on this Gandarium and how dangerous they are."

"And how will he get into contact with Max?" Kyle wondered aloud, and then the answer became obvious. "Brody, again. Once Larek's had a bit of time to plan, he'll be able to come to Brody safely. So if we see Brody tomorrow..."

"Then it's better than even odds that he'll be Larek, again," Tess finished. "Yeah, that makes sense to me."

"Well, even though the results weren't really what she expected, it's probably a good thing that Isabel tried the hypnosis plan on Brody," Kyle said. "We wouldn't even have heard of this Gandarium stuff if it hadn't been for him."

"Yeah," Tess agreed, though she didn't sound happy about that.

"There's one thing that's bugging me, though," Kyle said, and Tess gestured that he should keep talking. "Wouldn't Larek have known that Max didn't have any way to leave Earth?"

"Well, no, I don't think that he's keeping such close tabs on us, and I feel better that way," Tess said after a moment. "Somehow I think that he knows that we're in Roswell - the four of us, and Brody too. If Brody's been his spare body on Earth ever since he was first 'abducted', then maybe Larek even had something to do with leading Brody to Roswell - though if that's the case, then he might have been frustrated at having to go back to New York for the Summit. And he knows that Max hasn't left Earth, but not whether he had a choice. As far as that goes, back at the Summit - Nicholas offered us passage to Antar, an offer with strings attached, and Max turned it down. Maybe Larek guessed that it wasn't a valuable offer to Max, because he had a ship that he could use when he wanted to."

"Okay, that's enough talking about you and Max in New York," Kyle grumbled.

"It is?" Tess looked up at him. "Then what are you going to do about it, boyfriend?" She put down her ice cream and pouted.

Kyle nearly jumped to his girlfriend to cover her in kisses.

#

The next morning, Liz was sitting at one of the booths in the Crashdown dining room, wearing a white tank top and cut-off jeans. She had a paper spread over most of the table, and as Kyle and Tess approached they could see enough to figure out that it was some kind of obscure special-purpose map. "Hey, guys. Max should be here any minute."

"That's good to hear," Tess said, slipping onto the seat across from Liz. "At that point, are you actually going to clear away enough space for us to have breakfast, or am I supposed to treat this map like a tablecloth and put my plate of waffles on top of it?"

"Please don't, yes, I'll give you some space, just as soon as I've finished explaining what I know so far."

"Just what kind of map is this?" Kyle asked. "Or will that have to wait until Max gets here, so you can explain it all at once?"

"No, I won't go too far, but I can catch you up to where he was last night," Liz said. "The map is hydrological - it maps the underground streams that make up the water table in Roswell and the west half of Chavez county."

"Did Grant give you all this?" Tess asked.

"Nah." Liz shook her head emphatically. "But he told me enough that I knew what to look for on the internet, and I was able to use one of Brody's fancy printers last night."

"So, what's so important about the water table in Frazier woods?" Tess asked,

"That would be giving you a sneak peek," Liz said. "I'm not talking until Max gets here."

"No? Well, let me look for myself," Tess said, squeezing close to Kyle to peer at the part of the map that was on that side of the table. "Well, nearly everything seems to be interconnected - among them, the underground streams in Frazier woods, the ones closer to Roswell, which presumably are drawn on for the town's water supply, and - yeah, there's ground water out here, which isn't labelled on the map of course, but we all know that it's really the old Puhlman ranch, the 1947 crash site."

"Clever girl," Liz muttered reluctantly. "And what does all of that tell you?"

"I'm not sure," Tess admitted. "But you'll be telling us what you think soon, because Max just came in. What about Isabel, anyway? We'd need more room if she's joining us."

"Isabel went off to knock on Alex's door," Max explained as he came into range. "I'm not sure how well that'll work out for her, under the circumstances, but far be it from me to keep her from trying her luck. So, how far did you get on the map, honey?" He sat down next to Liz, and brushed a bit of her hair aside so that he could lay a trail of kisses from ear down the neck to her bare shoulder.

"Not too far, I guess," Liz muttered. "There's a current in the water table from the Puhlman ranch in the direction of Frazier woods. If our blue crystals got into the ground water from your ship, they would have gotten that far - but honestly I'm not sure why they're still there, after so many decades. There's only one small water reservoir in the woods, and it's **not** at the same spot where you guys found Laurie buried. As far as I can tell from the flow notation, most of the ground water that flows through the woods every year comes in this direction, through town, and northeast towards Santa Fe."

"Directly through town?" Kyle asked.

"Not all of it - but there's an old well just south of here, practically right across the street," Liz said. "It's not being tapped anymore, because of the zoning bylaws, but that's why the first community developed around what would eventually be downtown Roswell. It was a minor oasis in the desert."

"Okay, let's think outside the box," Tess suggested. "These blue crystals can travel through the water, but they didn't get this far that way. Maybe there's some reason they wanted to stick around the woods? What is there in Frazier woods that there isn't elsewhere?"

"Trees," Kyle answered automatically. The other three looked at him. "I'm not pretending that that's something profound, but it's the obvious answer. There are lots of trees there, and bushes and other plants. Living roots digging down into the soil. Maybe that has something to do with why the blue crystals didn't continue to float on under the desert."

"Okay, yeah, that's a possibility, Kyle," Liz agreed. "But it doesn't really help us figure out what to do next - not a criticism, just a statement. Larek said that all Earth could be in danger if the - what was the word he used?"

"Gandarium," Max whispered absently.

"Right." Liz nodded. "If they'd gotten out of the ship. But if these blue crystal organisms are the same thing, then they're sitting out in Frazier woods, and we don't have any indication of how they're dangerous to the human race at large. They have something to do with Laurie being in danger, yeah, but..."

"Hey, take a look," Kyle muttered, pointing beside Max towards the front door of the Crashdown. Liz and Max craned their necks, and everybody could recognize Brody entering.

"Hi, Brody," Max said, as Tess silently mouthed the name 'Larek?'

"Morning, Evans," Brody said, slowly drawing near. "Liz, how's that project of yours going?"

"Well, I'm a little stumped at the moment, but thanks for all your help," she told him. "Not ordering take-out today?"

"Not for breakfast, I think, and certainly not while Maria's out of town," Brody answered. "Some of your other wait staff seem to resent the chore."

"Well, it's a service that we only extend to very important customers," Liz said. Brody didn't offer a reply, but sat down in the booth beside theirs and buried his face in his hands, a picture of total exhaustion.

"Okay, so much for that idea," Tess muttered, and Max and Liz automatically leaned forward across the table to hear her better.

"What idea?" Max asked.

"Tess and I thought that it would be Larek who would come to find us this morning," Kyle explained. "He did say that he'd try to tell us more as soon as he could."

"Well, we can't count on Larek to get us out of this," Max said. "As much as I hate to say it, I think that the time has come to move into dangerous territory. We need to know exactly what's going on in Frazier woods, and that means..." He broke off when he heard Brody moving again, rising to his feet and stepping closer to their table. "Yes, Mister Davis, what is it?"

"Hello, Max, it's Larek now," Larek said, Brody's mouth curving into a slight smile. "It looks like my idea worked out well enough. I gave Brody a subconscious suggestion to find you, and then fall asleep to allow me in."

"Oh, hi Larek," Tess said. "Why did you do that instead of looking for us in Brody's body, yourself?"

"Time," Larek explained shortly, and swung a chair up facing the table. "I won't have long on Earth, after the stunt you kids pulled last night, so I figured I might as well make it count. And if I'm not taking much of Brody's time, and leave him where he started over there, he might not notice that he was 'abducted' again. So let's not waste more time."

"That's good with me," Liz said. "Tell us more about Gandarium, and how they're dangerous."

Larek waited a moment, and caught a slight nod of encouragement from Max before he spoke. "Okay. Do you understand how... how the Royal Four are hybrids now, with new bodies that are half Antarian and half human, to allow them to blend into human society?"

"Yes, we've heard all that," Tess said.

"At about that level of detail," Liz qualified. "We don't understand exactly how it was accomplished."

"I see," Larek said. "Well, the Gandarium are critical to the hybridization process. They were genetically engineered to bridge the DNA and RNA sequencing during third-stage amino acid synthesis." Everybody looked to Liz to see how she was handling this level of technical jargon, and she shook her head slightly.

"I've heard of all those things, yeah, but I'm not quite following the process," she admitted. "But the Gandarium are an artificial life-form designed to help make cross-breeds between radically different species?"

"I guess that's the first critical point," Larek said a little stiffly. "In a controlled environment like the crew would have maintained on your ship, they fulfil their function very safely. You take an Antarian cell, and a human cell, and the Gandarium bridge the gap and allow them to be merged, or to split in such a way that a hybrid cell is one of the resulting cells. Are you with me so far?"

"Yeah," Liz, Max, and Tess all chorused. Kyle looked between them, and shrugged.

"But without that direction, the Gandarium will start to lose control. After this long without a proper assignment, they'll be looking for any human or Antarian cells they can find, and hybridize them any which way from Smarch. The results are very unpredictable - you could have human-Gandarium hybrids, or hybrids of humans with other earth animals, hybrids with plant life, even with Earth bacteria - which could be the genesis of a plague particularly deadly to humans."

"But they're not infecting just any humans," Tess pointed out. "The Gandarium seem to be particularly interested in one human girl."


	6. Chapter 6

"But they're not infecting just any humans," Tess said to Larek/Brody. "The Gandarium seem to be particularly interested in one human girl."

Larek considered these words for a long moment before nodding. "That suggests that they can't infect most other humans, but I'm not quite sure why. Except... oh, hang on just a moment, I need to consult one of my references." Brody's eyes started to stare glassily into the distance, and Tess wondered if Larek was relaxing his mental control of the Earth man in order to flip through papers on his office desk, or click through files on a computer - or heck, flash pictures up on the wall using an alien orb.

"I hope that this turns into something useful," Max muttered to Liz.

"Hmm, okay," Brody muttered as Larek came back. "There's a reference from an early Gevinor scouting mission to Earth that humans are generally resistant to Gandarium hybridizing techniques. I'm not certain exactly what that means - the old Queen's people must have found a way to make it work, Max, or you wouldn't have existed. You either," he added, looking over at Tess.

"Okay, hypothetical supposition," Liz said. "Suppose that there's a very rare gene in humans that does make them susceptible to the Gandarium thing. So Nasedo, and anybody left alive on the mission - they'd have had to search to find different human subjects they could use to hybridize with the samples that they had of the Royal Four. And the Gandarium could be after any of them now, except that a lot of them are probably dead."

"I get it," Max said, smiling at her. "Laurie's grandfather must have carried the gene, which is why Michael looks like the old picture of Grandpa; Michael has Grandpa's human DNA. And Grandpa passed on the gene to his family, so now Laurie has it."

"If that's it, then the problem won't end with this Laurie girl," Larek warned. "Once the Gandarium manage to hybridize her, in an uncontrolled fashion, they'll be able to transcend their limits, create Gandarium-human hybrids that could hybridize any human."

"That's bad," Kyle said. "But okay, there's something that I don't get. If the Gandarium are just these crystals out in the woods, then who kidnapped Laurie from the asylum in Texas for them? Are there other aliens working for them, or can they control human pawns like you do - sir?"

"Well, the Gandarium have a highly organized collective society, with different special roles," Larek started.

"Like a beehive?" Tess prompted. "With workers, and drones, and the queen?"

"Wait a second," Larek muttered, and thought about it. "Yes, that will do for an analogy. So, there's a special Gandarium, just one to a 'hive', which can leave the nest and work towards its goals. It's not really like a queen bee, but let's call it the queen Gandarium anyway. The queen has been known to burrow inside some other creature, and then, yes, it can control that creature's actions and thoughts somewhat. But that's also the hive's weakness. If the queen is killed, then because of the mental linkage between them, the rest of the hive will perish also."

"Thanks very much for this info, Larek," Max said. "I know that you've got to leave Brody soon. Is there anything else you can think of that's important?"

"No, you're right, I need to go now." Larek stood up. "Don't react to Brody until he shows that he's aware of you." Larek stood up and returned to Brody's original table. Kyle reached out and pushed the chair that Larek had been using away towards the square table that it had come from, so that it wouldn't be as evident that anybody else had joined them at their booth. Then an awkward silence fell.

"So, you were saying something about spending the day out in the woods, Max?" Tess asked, her voice sounding a bit too loud, and Max winced and shook his head in her direction.

"Yes, that makes some sense," Liz said. "You can all help me out with my 'science project.'"

"Oh, joy," Kyle muttered.

"Excuse me?" Brody's voice came from behind their booth. All four teens froze in mid-conversation, but a red-haired waitress a few tables turned towards Brody's booth and waved with an "I'll be right with you" kind of gesture.

#

Alex and Isabel showed up at the Crashdown, each giving the other a cold shoulder, and very hungry. Max wanted to leave for Frazier woods right away, but neither of them wanted to drive out of town together, or hitch a ride with the same car. Eventually, Alex went with Liz and Max in the Jeep, and Kyle gave Tess and Isabel a ride - after Alex and Isabel both had their takeout orders.

"So, how much have you guys worked out about this Frazier woods stuff?" Isabel asked as Kyle passed the city limits sign.

"Not everything, but a lot," Tess said. "Larek dropped by again, and filled in some of the blanks."

"Sheesh, you'd think Max could have let me know that as soon as I showed up."

"Yeah, he could shout alien secrets from the roof while he's at it," Kyle put in.

"Was he pissed at me for yanking him to Earth?" Isabel asked after a moment

Kyle thought about that. "He didn't mention you by name."

"I'm not convinced that he knows any of us by name, except Max," Tess said. "Max introduced me at the Summit, but he didn't call me by name either."

"I guess not," Kyle said. "But there was a lot going on. Anyway, he seemed to hold Max responsible for the 'stunt,' and Max took it. Which is decent of him, he did support your plan, Isabel."

"Yeah, that's just great of him," Isabel drawled, rolling her eyes.

#

"Let's walk and talk," Liz said, once they'd filed out of their cars in the Frazier Woods campsite parking lot. "I got a check-in call from Maria on the way up here, and it could be important stuff for all of us today."

"Just how's Michael doing?" Kyle asked.

"It sounds like he's a little irritable, but not too bad otherwise. Let's see - Laurie's grandfather is dead. She must have been delusional when she told Michael that she could introduce them. Laurie's at her family's house in Tucson, with an aunt and uncle. Not long after Michael and Maria arrived, the Aunt and Uncle had their security guys throw Michael and Maria out."

"Wait, hold up?" Tess said. "How come nobody found out about this aunt and uncle? That's counting Jim and Agent Duff..."

"Dad didn't have much time to investigate Laurie, after he knew it was her, before he got suspended," Kyle muttered.

"I tend to think that Duff is fairly competent, but we don't know that for sure," Max said. "Maybe the Aunt and Uncle didn't want to be found."

"I didn't even get to the interesting part," Liz said. "Before Michael got the heave ho, the uncle paid him ten thousand dollars to not pursue an inheritance settlement against Grandpa Dupree's estate."

Tess started laughing, and Kyle shared a sidelong look at her.

"So I guess Grandpa Dupree was the one who had the money," he said. "Laurie comes back with a teenage boy who looks the spitting image of Grandpa when he was young, and a teenage girl hanging around. The aunt and uncle think that he's an illegitimate son, or pretending to be."

Tess sighed. "I guess that nobody had a chance to ask if Grandpa ever had an alien abduction experience or anything like that."

"No," Liz said. "Michael's upset about the whole thing - he promised Laurie that he'd protect her from anybody who wanted to hurt her, and now he can't. He doesn't trust the aunt and uncle to take care of their young niece. Michael and Maria tried to sneak back into the house late last night, and got caught before they got to Laurie, thrown back out again."

"Okay, well, maybe they'll be able to figure something else out from the Arizona side, or maybe they won't," Kyle decided. "And in the meantime, we go digging for Gandarium crystals."

"Yeah," Max said. "Starting with the area where Laurie was found. I'm not sure what to do when we find them, but we need to get an idea of how many are out there and why."

"I thought of one more question we should have asked Larek," Kyle said. "How do we kill them?"

"Oh, the Gandarium queen," Tess said, turning to Liz. "Or the scout or whatever. Did you tell Maria about that part, Liz?"

"Umm, I guess I mentioned it in passing, why?"

"Well, because the one thing we know about is, that queen's going after Laurie. If Michael's there, then he's the one who's going to have to protect Laurie, and we need to warn him what he's going up against."

"And stop the queen in a fatal way, I'd suggest, if we can figure out what's fatal to Gandarium," Kyle said. "Then there's no more nest to worry about."

"Maybe," Max said. "I don't really like the idea of killing other aliens just because they pose a problem - but these Gandarium don't sound like they're open to starting a dialog."

"Okay, well, Michael and Maria are probably on their way to the Hall of Records by now," Liz said. "Maria had a hunch about how they could get back inside Dupree Manor. We can call in an hour or so, find out how that went."

#

"Okay," Tess muttered, checking the map copy that Max had given her. "Grid point six-three should be here, give or take ten feet. Beginning dig number seven for team TK." She pocketed the paper and picked up the shovel, working it into the ground with gusto. "Come on, Valenti. We can break after this one."

Kyle shuffled over to the spot where Tess was working, and pitched in with a larger spade. "I used to wonder what Liz and her new friends did together last year, after she broke up with me."

"Well, I wasn't around for most of it," Tess said. "I know there were a lot of secret meetings, plenty of lying to authorities and ex-boyfriends - and relatively few moments of imminent danger." She set the shovel aside for a moment to wipe off her forehead. "I haven't heard about any other hard labour days. Are you mad at me about this, honey?"

"What - why would I be pissed at you? If anybody, it was Max and Liz who volunteered me for digging duty."

"Yeah, but - you know. Before Valentine's Day, you were able to keep all of this alien stuff at arm's length. It was a club that you didn't want to be in, and you had no problems making that clear. But since you and I became an 'us', whatever alien craziness I'm in the middle of, you're stuck with too."

"Are you really worried about that?" Kyle bent down, considered the awkward position for a second, and settled for kissing her on the cheek. "I'm not crazy about either of us being in danger, but I like being in the club if it means that I get to spend time with you, Tess. And if you're in the line of fire, then I want to help if I can - even if you're the one with the freaky powers."

Tess considered for a moment. "Aww, thanks." She hummed deep in her throat on a happy tune, and bent her face up to return a sweeter kiss. "But we've got a hole to dig." She drove her shovel into the ground, avoiding Kyle's feet, and struck something hard. "More of those damn rocks, this better not take too long..."

But when she brushed some of the softer earth away, the 'rocks' that had stopped her shovel were partially revealed, and they were bright blue and crystalline. "Jackpot," Kyle breathed.

"Gandarium," Tess agreed. "You finish uncovering them, and I'll let the leader know." She pulled out her cell phone and speed-dialled. "Hey, Max? Meet at grid point six-three; we found something."

Before too long, all six teens had gathered in the small forested clearing, and the pit that Tess and Kyle had started digging included not just a considerable amount of alien blue crystal, but also a person-sized hole opening into an underground cavern.

"Okay, so what's the plan now, Max?" Liz prompted affectionately. "You're the one who suggested that we should dig holes and look for something. They found something, so..."

Max looked around at the other faces and didn't say anything. Tess cleared her throat loudly. "Yeah, I've got an idea, though I can't say that I like it much."

"I suspect I won't either," Max muttered. "But say on."

"Somebody needs to go down there and explore the nest," Tess said. "Two people, so that they can look out for each other without risking too much of the group." She looked over at Kyle. "We found it together. What do you think?"

"Ooh." Kyle took a deep breath. "Yeah, I'm in."

"Don't linger," Max said. "Go in, take a quick look around, and come back out to give us a report. Is there any gear that might get somebody out of a tight spot?"

"Do we happen to have a jaws of life sitting around?" Kyle joked. But in the space of ninety seconds, he and Kyle had been handed a flashlight, matches, Swiss army knife, first aid kit, and rope.

"This is enough," Tess decided, stuffing some granola bars and bottles of water into her shoulder bag.

"You've still got your phone?" Liz prompted. Tess tapped her jeans pocket, and Kyle brought his own phone out to wave it meaningfully. "Okay - watch that first step."

"I'll go first," Kyle said, and Tess shrugged, then nodded. He stepped down into the pit, then climbed down the cave opening until he stood at the bottom. "Not about to tell you what to do, but I'm glad that I took that carefully," he hinted.

Tess considered that for a moment, then pulled her bag off her shoulder and dropped it down into the opening, then carefully followed, bracing her arms and feet against opposite sides of the narrow gap in the rock.

"Nothing much to report from here," Kyle called up, waving the flashlight around.

"There are some blue crystals embedded into the walls, floor, and - yeah, the ceiling," Tess added. "The cavern opens up a little further this way. We won't go too far."

After Tess and Kyle had walked a few steps away from the opening together, they heard Liz's voice, sounding very faint. "Watch out, guys - get outta there!" But by the time Kyle had turned around and shone his flashlight back the way that they had come, the exit had been blocked by a solid wall of faceted blue Gandarium.

"How fast does this stuff move when it wants to?" Tess complained.

#

Luckily for them, Gandarium crystal had no obvious effect on a cell phone signal. "I'm not sure how to get you out," Max admitted reluctantly to Tess. "We can't seem to move the Gandarium directly with our powers, and throwing rocks as hard as we could against it didn't have any obvious effect."

Tess considered. "How about cutting through it? With something a little harder than a Swiss army knife?

"Well, Larek's got a diamond saw in the storeroom at the UFO center," Max said. "Okay, but - well, we'll have to split up, because I don't want to leave all these holes, and exposed Gandarium, without anyone to keep an eye on who else might show up in Frazier woods."

"If you think that's best," Tess said. "Go two and two then, is my advice, so nobody's on their own. The queen is out there somewhere - at least, she's not in here as far as we can tell."

"Good thinking," Max said. There was some conversation that Tess couldn't really make out on Max's end of the line. "Okay, Isabel and Alex are going into town for the diamond saw, and Liz and I will be right here. Do you need me to stay on the line?"

"No, that's okay," Tess said. "Call back in half an hour?"

"You got it."

"Half an hour?" Kyle demanded once Tess hung up. "We could suffocate by then."

"If you feel short of breath, feel free to call Max yourself," Tess snapped. "For all the help you think he'll be. But I don't think the air feels stuffy at all. In fact..." She broke off, opened her bag, took a bottle of water, and started to drain it methodically.

"Is this really a good time for chugging the H two oh?" Kyle asked. "Especially considering that we're low on bathroom facilities in here?"

"There's no sense letting the water go to waste," Tess said, taking a deep breath. "We'll need it sooner or later, maybe, and I'm not too proud to squat behind an outcropping. I've spotted a few channels that probably drain into the water table. Do you want part of it?"

Kyle stared at her for a moment, then took the bottle and drained the rest of the water in one long gulp. "Okay, so what now?"

"Now we've got a sample container," Tess pointed out; taking the empty bottle out of his hands and placing the cap loosely back on it.

"What do you want a sample of? And who decided I was the straight man in this act?"

Tess smiled at him, considered for a moment, and tossed the flashlight in his direction without turning it off. Kyle made a good catch, and then pointed the light away from Tess, playing it over the wall, until she clicked her tongue a few times and he shone it right in her eyes.

Tess sighed, stepped away just far enough that she could see, and Kyle didn't keep tracking her with the flashlight. With the ambient light around and a free hand, she was able to bend down, find a projecting bit of blue crystal on the cave floor, pry it away, and pop it into the bottle.

"Okay, so what have we accomplished with all that?" Kyle asked her.

Tess made a dramatic show of twisting the lid closed. There was no immediate change, and just as Kyle opened his mouth Tess told him, "Just wait a moment more."

So they stood opposite each other for a minute or so, Kyle pointedly staring at the plastic bottle in Tess' hand, while she watched his face for any reaction. And then the neck of the bottle twitched and tugged against her fingers, as if it was being blown to and fro by a wind that she couldn't feel. Tess let herself look at the bottle again, and smiled when she saw that the little blue blob was bouncing back and forth vigorously. More than anything, it reminded her of some giant insect, struggling for freedom.

But that little bit of Gandarium could strive with more force than any bug that Tess could think of, and after a few seconds of fumbling, Tess lost her grip on the bottle entirely and it fell to the cave floor. Without missing a beat, she whipped out a small flashlight pen from her jeans pocket and played it over that section of the rock surface, making sure that there was no drainage or crevices that the bottle could fall into.

"Shouldn't we grab it again, and...?"

"No, it's starting already," she told him with a soft whisper. "Let it happen in peace."

"Let what happen?" Kyle asked.

But it certainly did seem that the bottle, and the Gandarium within, was becoming more peaceful, just twitching a little back and forth. After the bottle had been still and quiet for a long moment, Tess stepped toward it, then changed her mind and invited Kyle to go and pick it up himself. When he did, Kyle started once he got a good look at what had happened inside. There was no blue crystal or blob, or any kind of blue in fact. Instead, the blob was gooey, stuck where the side and bottom of the plastic bottle met, and had turned into a sort of a greyish-brown color.

"What - what happened to it?" Kyle asked. "You seemed to know what you were doing, so..."

"It's dead," Tess said. She turned away and played her flashlight pen over the walls, staring at them intently.

"What - what killed it?"

"The same thing that you were worrying about killing you." Tess kept her face away from him. "Suffocation - lack of sufficient oxygen."

"These things breathe oxygen?"

"Well, sure, why not? I do - and though there could be aliens who breathe other things, none of them are too likely to be able to survive on Earth." She spun around to face Kyle. "So we don't need to worry about suffocating in the middle of the nest. There has to be ventilation somewhere, or the Gandarium would be dying too."

"Okay. Well, thanks." Kyle sighed and sat down on the cave floor. "Do you want a snack or something, if we're supposed to be sitting tight and waiting on the rest of the gang to rescue us?"

Tess smiled, and considered the question for a few seconds. "I'm not in a granola mood."

"Tess, we're stuck in an alien nest that has enough infectious potential to end the world as we know it. The hell with granola!" She snickered. "I grabbed some of the good junk food before breakfast. Max told us to load up on supplies, didn't he?"

Tess smiled. "Okay, so what's the most fattening thing in your bag?"

Kyle started to sort through it and compare the possibilities. "Let's see... potato chips, maybe, probably not a contender. Twinkies - getting up there. Chocolate cupcakes, here's the stuff!"

Tess licked her lips. "I don't suppose that it occurred to you to bring..." Kyle held up a little bottle of Tabasco sauce, almost full. "Have you started to feel a craving for it yourself?"

"Nope - I just figured that you'd be asking as soon as we took our first snack break from digging. I wasn't expecting these circumstances, but things work out differently sometimes."

"I love you," Tess muttered, and then gasped a little as it occurred to her just how significant that phrase could be to a boyfriend.

Kyle cocked his head slightly. "You're definitely something incredible yourself, alien girl," he drawled, and Tess let out a relieved breath.

#

It was a few hours before Tess' phone rang. "Hello?" she asked eagerly, and it rang again before she managed to hit the right button to pick up the call. "What's the news?"

"Um, well, we've gotten back inside the mansion, but Aunt Meredith and Uncle Bobby aren't too happy about it. What's going on over there? Neither Max or Isabel picked up their cell phones."

"Kyle and I discovered the Gandarium nest, and now we're trapped in it."

"Ooh," Michael muttered. "Don't you wish that you'd checked with Max before blundering into the exciting part like a goof?"

Tess snickered. "I did check! Max signed off on the two of us going in to explore. But none of us knew that they'd be able to seal over the opening again once we were in. Anyway, I haven't heard from any of the others in a little while. Max was talking about getting a diamond saw to cut us out, and I didn't really want to be pestering him with calls, in case I interrupted something important."

"Hmm," Michael muttered, sounding concerned. Tess was now a bit worried about Max too - and Isabel and even Liz and Alex, but for some reason she wanted to divert Michael - if only because that was the best way to keep him talking to her. "So how did you get back into Grandpa's house, anyway? Was it Maria's plan? Liz mentioned something, but she wasn't specific about the details."

"Yeah, actually. She found the deed to the house, which is in Laurie's name. So Maria made a fuss about talking to anybody she could to make things difficult for them if they didn't let us see Laurie - the police, the press, a lawyer, you know. Once we were inside, she asked Laurie for permission to look around, and found a check stub for a million dollar donation from Aunt Meredith to that asylum in Texas where Laurie was committed."

"Ooh, the plot thickens," Tess muttered. "Of course, she might claim she was just investing in her darling niece's comfort and care, but..."

"But it could be a kickback for diagnosing her as insane," Michael muttered. "Yeah, that was what I thought."

"And speaking of Aunt Meredith and Uncle Bobby," Tess said, "are they both her blood relations or man and wife?"

"You know, I'm actually not sure, it's really ambiguous," Michael admitted. "They act really intimate when they're in the room together, but not quite as affectionate as I'd expect a married couple to be, and they've both referred to Laurie's grandparents as Mother and Daddy."

"Weird," Tess muttered. "No mention of any of the rest of Laurie's family? Her mother, the grandmother, any children of Bobby and Meredith, or other siblings?"

"Nada. Listen, as fun as it is catching up, I should probably go and try to find Laurie, talk with her a bit more; she can probably answer some of these questions. I think that she's starting to get a bit more comfortable around me. Oh - and you guys wanted to know if Grandpa had ever been abducted by aliens?"

"Yeah, definitely! Good luck."

"Thanks."

"And do keep an eye out for anything strange. We have no idea what or who the Gandarium Queen will look like when it shows up, but it'll be after Laurie - or maybe Aunt Bobby or Uncle Meredith. Well - you know what I mean."

"What? Oh, was that why you were asking which of them were in the bloodline?"

"Yeah. If this is a dominant gene that the Gandarium are interested in, then any of Grandfather's children have a fifty-fifty chance of inheriting it. Laurie only had one chance in four."

"Just how bad would it be if I let the aliens get Bobby and Meredith? They totally deserve to be killed by aliens."

"Letting the Queen drag them back here - epically bad, end of the world in a really gross and 'Island of Doctor Moreau' kind of way," Tess summarized. "If they die in the crossfire, or get taken part of the way back but not buried in the hive - not so bad, for anybody but them, and maybe those of us who have consciences."

"Okay, talk to you later," Michael said. "Wait - Kyle's down there with you?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Hit him for me, would you?"

"Umm - any reason why?"

"Yeah, but I can't remember. It's been a rough couple of days. I just remember thinking when I was on stakeout with Maria that I needed to smack Valenti upside the head for something. I didn't think I could trust Liz or Max to take care of it."

Tess considered. "Figure out what it was and then get back to me." And without any final sign-off, she hung up on Michael.

Kyle was watching her, half a smile on his face. "What did he want you to do?"

Tess ran over her side of the end of that conversation, then unwrapped a Twinkie pack and offered Kyle one of them. "Anyway, I'm officially worried about Max and Liz now. If they were just watching the topside of the nest, waiting for Isabel and Alex, wouldn't they have picked up for Michael?"

"Yeah," Kyle agreed. "The question is - will they pick up for either of us, and if so, is it a good idea to call?"

"I'm not sure." Tess hesitated, and then reached out with her mind, scanning upwards in a wide spiral. It was an odd experience to try to focus her powers past the scattered Gandarium above her, but she was able to get something useful. "Call Liz."

"Why me?"

"Because she likes you better, and she just might refuse to pick up if she sees it's me."

"Is Max up there too?"

"Well, yeah, but he's more upset, and he doesn't like either of us as well as Liz likes you."

#

Kyle looked at Tess for a long moment, then shook his head, and pulled out his dorky second-hand cell. "Come on, Liz, pick up, pick up," he mumbled, even before the speed-dial went through.

"Hi, Kyle! Sorry that we haven't been staying in touch, but things are crazy. Isabel got attacked by somebody in town. Alex is following her, and they're both on the road west towards Arizona."

"Uh-oh." Kyle considered that. "Are we thinking it's the Gandarium queen?"

"Maybe - but why would a Gandarium want to hold a hybrid girl hostage?"

"I have to admit I don't know," Kyle said. "Unless Gandariums are the kind of aliens that try to ravish the most voluptuous maiden that they can find, in which case Isabel would qualify." Liz cleared her throat dryly, and Tess shot Kyle an unimpressed look. "What? I'm not saying that we're dealing with that kind of alien, but if we are, she totally does."

"Moving along," Liz said. "So, we're worried about Isabel, but can't really do anything more to help her, Max and I, and we've got no diamond saw. Plus, it's starting to rain up here."

"Oh, great." Kyle looked up at the cave ceiling. He didn't see any obvious holes, but there was no way that it could be watertight. "So, do you have any plan at all left for getting us out of here?"

"Short of somebody killing the queen so that the nest dissolves, not really - but let us work on it for a bit, okay?"

"Okay, okay. This is me shutting up." Kyle hung up the phone, and looked over at Tess. "Let's talk about something else, to distract ourselves from... the whole thing, okay?"

"Sure, I guess." Tess finished off her Twinkie.

"Do you remember the dream you had a few nights ago? The one that freaked you out so much that..."

"Well, yeah."

"Good." Kyle smiled. "Tell me about it."

Tess's face immediately went cold and hard. "I didn't mean that I remember the content of the dream. I just remember having it."

"Yeah." Kyle kept looking straight at Tess.

"So what, you don't believe me? Do you think that I'm holding out on you?"

"I think that maybe there's something you can't open up about, even to yourself," Kyle admitted. "But when you can, I'll be here for you. You can trust me on that."

"Screw you," Tess declared, and climbed up to storm off across the cave, taking the chocolate cupcakes with her.

#

Over the next half an hour, the rain started to drip into the cave, like it was a really crappy house with a badly leaking roof. It wasn't actually too hard to avoid the water, but the sound of the dripping got on Kyle's nerves, especially when that was the only sound. And the only time there was another sound was when he was talking at Tess.

He didn't want to talk at her. It wasn't helping.

So he looked for another way to pass the time, and ended up coming up with a piece of chalklike rock that would leave a line behind, and scratched out a game board on a flat, dry stretch of the floor. He played the fox and the sheep against himself, with ordinary dark gray pebbles for the sheep, and a bright blue Gandarium for the fox. It seemed fitting, and the things seemed completely sedate and harmless - as long as you didn't try to suffocate them, at least.

"Do you really think that you can handle what I'm going through?" Tess called just as the fox was making a determined break for freedom. "I mean, I trust in your good intentions, in theory at least. But you know where good intentions can lead."

"Yeah, I've heard," Kyle told her. "And - well, I think so, but without knowing what's involved, I guess I can't be sure. And if you're determined to keep things a secret unless you're certain that I'm prepared, you'll probably never get there. At some point, you may need to take a leap of faith."

"Like you did with your Buddhism stuff?"

"Yeah - and like we both did around Valentine's day," Kyle reminded her. "I had no certainty that I could actually get you to notice me, instead of always mooning over Max, but I knew that you were the kind of girl that it was worth it to take a chance for, even though I'd have been really hurt if I risked my ego and you didn't feel the same way. And you - when you agreed to be my valentine, you knew that I liked you, but I also know that you were scared about if we could make it work. Do you think that leap's worked out well so far?"

"Yeah," Tess admitted grudgingly. "Maybe that's why I'm not wild about the idea of risking what we have by being too honest with you."

"Not being honest can be taking a risk too." Kyle shook his head. "Is this stuff really that bad?"

"If you only knew... Liz and Maria, they think that I'm a deceptive bitch, but they don't realize the half of it."

Kyle considered, and then got up, walked away from his game, and approached her. Tess leaned away, jerking her upper body as if she was trying to squirm across the cave, but not actually moving anywhere. Kyle squatted down next to Tess and wrapped his arms around her.

"Whenever you tell me, it's going to be okay. I know that you've made bad choices, that you'll probably make more mistakes as life goes on. That's the human condition, and maybe the Antarians too; they sure don't sound like they're perfect. They have desires as strong as humans do, anyway, and the root of suffering, and of sin, is desire."

Tess looked up at him. "But where there is desire, there's the capacity for love," Kyle continued on. "And I guess where there's love, there's the capacity for forgiveness. I might not be able to forgive you as soon as you're honest with me, but I'm not going to give up trying. I promise you that, here and now."

Tess cleared her throat and snuffled. "Could - could I get a coke? I'm feeling sick and tired of water."

Kyle stared at her. "Your bladder is going to swell up and do something horrible to you, at this rate." Then he started to laugh.

"I already took care of my bladder. You were paying attention to your pebbles."

"Really?" Kyle didn't think that he could possibly have paid enough attention to the fox and the sheep to not realize that Tess Harding was pulling down her jeans and her panties - but maybe such things were possible.

Tess leaned against his side as he walked her back to his supplies, as if she had been emotionally drained by what they had been through. "Okay, you're right. I should tell you what's been weighing on my mind, and not just in my dreams, but this won't be easy to say."

Kyle felt something heavy lodge in his stomach and start weighing it down. "It might not be easy to hear, either."

"Do you want me to leave it for later?"

"Well, hell. We don't really have anything else to devote our time to, do we?"

"I guess not." Neither of them said more until Tess was set up with her full-calorie Coke. "Okay, so it started last October, before Halloween, with Zan from New York. You remember hearing about him?"

"Well, yeah. The punk version of Max. The one who punk Isabel and punk Michael killed in a car accident." Kyle shrugged. "What about him? None of our gang here in Roswell ever met him, did they?"

"I met him," Tess said, her voice quiet and toneless. "Only a week or two before he died. He came to Roswell, because he'd found out that we were here and wanted to check in on us, and he came to me first, because he was looking for Ed."

"How did he even find you?"

"That's not the important part, Kyle." Tess let out a big sigh. "The thing is, I was really upset about Max still being focused on Liz, and not letting me into his life, and I guess I started telling him about that as if it was a red alert priority. Zan liked Ava a lot, so he didn't see a problem with Max being with me, and between the two of us, we hatched up a scheme. Zan could do the same sort of thing I could do, he could fool somebody into seeing what wasn't there, and I'd been studying Liz ever since I got to town, and so..."

"Oh, no," Kyle muttered. "Future Max. You set Zan up to pose as..."

"Liz told you about that part?" Tess asked. "I thought that she just asked you for a favour without explaining why."

Kyle stared at Tess, realizing why she'd thought that what she had to confess was unforgivable.


	7. Chapter 7

Another tense silence spread across the cave before Kyle's cell phone rang again. "Yeah, what's up Liz?" he asked without looking at the screen.

"Actually, it's me," a male voice answered. Max. "How are you guys doing?"

"Fine, under the circumstances. How are you and Liz holding up?"

"We're doing okay, considering the rain," Max muttered. "Tess is there with you?"

Kyle searched the cavern with his flashlight before he answered. "She's sitting twenty yards away."

"I just tried her number a minute ago."

"Hmm - she must have switched her phone off," Kyle decided. "Do you want me to...?"

"Just hand me over," Max snapped, so Kyle walked over to Tess and offered her the phone.

"Hello, who is this?" She remained seated as Max started the conversation over again. "Okay, okay, slow down. Just what do you want me to do?" She waited as Max talked for longer. "And just how am I expected to do that?" There was only a short pause this time. "If you must." Tess put the phone down for a moment, and got to her feet. "Hi, Liz. What's the plan?"

Tess listened as Liz made her own explanations, then turned, searched with her own miniature light, and set off across the cavern. Kyle trailed her quietly. "Alright, I'll tell you when I'm there," Tess said into the phone. "Does the kind of shoes I'm wearing make any difference to the length of my pace?"

Kyle was really curious about the topic of conversation now, but stayed well back just in case, noticing the white shoes that Tess was wearing, and the two-inch heels on them. "Yeah, and you're in flat sneakers, right?"

Kyle realized that Tess was standing where they had both entered the Gandarium nest, facing away from the blue crystal that barred the exit, and started to get a vague notion of what Liz was up to. Tess was still listening to Liz's instructions. "Yeah." After a second, Tess started to walk back into the center of the cavern with a self-assured and measured stride, counting each step. "One, two, three..." After counting eleven, she brought her trailing foot up to meet the lead foot. "Yeah, I'm holding at eleven... Okay, just a moment. Don't continue until I let you know." She slipped the phone down the front of her shirt, and waved her hands in the air. "Kyle, come and stand to my left."

He hurried around and came up on that side of her. "Like here?"

Tess only turned her head slightly. "No, not quite. There." She spread both arms straight out to her sides, and took a moment to orient them just right, as if she were trying to balance herself on a tightrope. Kyle was feeling annoyed and wanted to give her a hard time, but decided not to, as he could guess what she needed. Silently he oriented himself so that Tess' left hand was pointing as nearly at the center of his chest as he could be sure of. "Okay, you're good to turn."

She did, twisting smartly in place until she was facing him dead on. "Okay, thank you very much. Get out of the way."

"Uhh - why?"

"Well, because I need to walk that way, and not by following you. I need to walk as straight as I can - you can't walk straight if you're going backwards, and if you're in my path I'm going to automatically follow you instead of going straight ahead myself."

Kyle thought of one question as he moved aside. "And why do you need to walk straight ahead, instead of me?"

"Two reasons. One is that I'm already in the right spot. And I have nearly the same stride as Liz. You don't have the same stride as anybody who's up there."

Kyle had to admit that was true. He was a bit on the short side for a guy - not nearly as short as Liz, who was short for a girl, or as tall as Max, who was around six foot. So that would mean that neither of them could match him step for step, which must be the point. Liz was trying to lead Tess to some other point that she had found on the surface - they had gone back to the only common landmark - the hole by which Kyle and Tess had entered this dim tomb, and then Liz had started to make her way to point B, giving Tess instructions for shadowing her. Had she gone through the same routine to make her turn as precisely as possible, to make sure that they weren't heading off in different directions? Maybe Liz was using a compass - did either of them bring a compass down into the cave?

Tess cleared her throat, and quickly Kyle hurried out of the way. Tess fished the phone back out of her cleavage and counted off steps again, with Kyle following. Eventually she ended up near the side of the cavern. "No, I can't do ten; I'd be walking straight into a wall of blue crystal. Yeah, okay." Kyle's curiosity grew as she listened to detailed instructions from someone on the phone - the voice changed, and Kyle wondered if Max had taken his phone back, or if Liz were growing hoarse.

"Yeah, I'll do my bit." Tess hung up the phone, handed it back to Kyle, and backed off a little, to the side, but training her eyes forward. After a moment, she set her flashlight down, propping it up carefully in a crevice of the cavern floor so that it lit the patch of wall that Liz had wanted her to walk to. Then she turned to Kyle. "First, you should turn that phone off, and I'll turn mine on. To save battery power. Liz will think of that."

"Umm, okay," Kyle muttered, holding down the 'End' button, though he wasn't sure why making the switch just then was important. "What next?"

"Help me find some good rocks - fist sized or so will be fine if we can find two dozen of them. _not_ Gandarium."

"Uh, okay," Kyle muttered. He didn't ask for an explanation, through the few minutes that it took to gather up the pile of stones that Tess wanted, about ten feet away from 'the Blue Wall,' as Kyle now thought of it. She warned him to stay back at least that far from the wall until she said so, then got out her phone, and placed a call. "Hey, Max, I'm ready to go. Open fire in five - four, three, two, one..."

"Wait a second - open **fire**?" Kyle said, but nobody was really listening to him. Tess was completely focused on what she was doing - which had something to do with the fact that one by one the rocks were flying from the pile, to smack into the Blue Wall with blinding speed. Listening, Kyle realized that there were at least twice as many impacts as Tess' rocks could account for, and jumped to the conclusion that Max was doing the same from the outside somehow.

Tess' pile of 'ammunition' was down to a few rocks when the wall of Gandarium fractured and collapsed into a pile of little blue stones. Immediately everything blue in the entire nest went crazy - other blue patches seemed to melt off the wall and move like living things, blind, but searching for a target to vent inhuman malice on. Smaller lumps were flying across the room like Tess' stones had, and one impacted Kyle in the side - it bounced off, but he was sure that he'd have a purple mark later.

"Quick!" Tess called. "We run for it!"

"No!" Tess took Kyle's hand and stepped toward the new exit, but he held her back. "We scout it out, carefully." Letting Tess drag him slowly towards the heap of fractured Gandarium, he played his flashlight over the area. Those little alien critters were active too - and most of their activity seemed to involve changing their shape, from round balls to long skinny spikes that pointed away from the surface of the 'heap.' "There's no way that we can get through there without being impaled. The ceiling is low enough that we'd have to be on hands and knees..." Kyle's fingertips and palms were already itching as he imagined them getting stabbed, over and over again.

"It's our only chance!" Tess implored, as Kyle dug in his heels and refused to let Tess get closer. "Once we get to Max, he can heal us, save our lives again if he needs to. But he can't do that if we die inside the nest!"

"I can't take that chance with you!" Kyle yelled back. "You guys can't move these Gandarium with your powers - what if Max can't heal the wounds that they leave? What happens if some of those little blue cells stay inside your body, and nothing can get them out, until they eat you from the inside?"

That stopped Tess short for a moment. Then they both noticed a change in the heap's behaviour - it was piling itself higher, drawing its base into a narrower foundation. "This is our last second to reconsider," Tess said. "They're trying to reform the wall."

"I'm not going to risk it," Kyle said. "What if they become a solid wall again, with you or me halfway through? You can try it if you absolutely must, but..." He didn't let go of Tess' hand until he thought that she'd absorbed that idea, and by that point it looked like they were too late.

So Tess just watched as the outside world was sealed off from them a second time. A few seconds later, her phone rang.

"Max?" She sighed. "No, Kyle - well, we made the call. The Gandarium reacted faster than we thought they would. It was too dangerous to break through that way. Thanks for trying it, anyway. We'll figure some other way out."

After a moment for Max to say goodbye, Tess hung up and turned to Kyle. "Any ideas?"

The implication was clear - since he'd kept her from taking that way out of the nest, Tess felt it was up to him to figure out their next strategy for survival. To Kyle's surprise, he actually had a notion. "You talked to Michael earlier - did you happen to mention that little experiment with the Gandarium in the water bottle?"

"Well, no, I didn't think it was..." Tess trailed off as the point occurred to her. "We know that the Gandarium queen will go to Tucson, to bring Laurie back here - or possibly her aunt or uncle, if they've got the gene that she inherited from Grandpa Dupree. Larek told us that if the Queen dies, so do the rest of the hive. And we know that Gandarium can be killed by oxygen starvation. So Michael needs to know that that's a strategy, when he meets the Queen - trap it in a small space and keep it there long enough. Maybe suck out the air, if he can, to make the process quicker. And when the Queen suffocates..."

"Then the hive dies, and there won't be anything to keep us here," Kyle finished. "It looks like the dead Gandarium don't stick together, but if they do, we can use the alien artillery trick again to pulverize their bodies, knowing that they won't be able to fight back anymore."

"Okay," Tess said. "I'll call Michael. You turn on your phone and try Alex - he needs to know about this too." She considered. "How long ago did Isabel get taken prisoner? It's a long drive from Roswell to Tucson, if she's with the Queen."

"I think that it's been a while." Kyle checked the time display on his phone; it read 11:32pm. "It was early afternoon when Alex and Isabel went after the diamond saw, wasn't it?"

"I don't even know." Tess looked up from her own phone for a moment. "After we've finished doing the phone tree, how about dinner together?"

"I'm up for that," Kyle said. "Though the menu may leave something to be desired."

"Yeah. If we'd thought about it, Max and Liz could have tossed in supplies when we opened up the hole."

"We could always try it again," Kyle said. "I don't think that they're going to kill us if we don't try to escape - they could have done that earlier."

"No, I'm not going to do anything else that might piss the hive now. Not until we're ready to take them down."

And then she was on the line with Michael, explaining about the water bottle. So Kyle dialled for Alex.

It rang half a dozen times, and once again, he heard an unexpected. "Alex's phone."

"Isabel?" Kyle repeated. "You're with Alex? Did he rescue you?"

"Umm..." Isabel paused for a few seconds with those questions. "Sort of. Grant let me out on the side of the road and drove on. Alex picked me up."

Kyle considered this. "So it was Grant who abducted you, not the Gandarium queen?"

"No - the Queen who took me, but Grant's fighting it. It's hard for him, he's losing himself. I'm afraid that by the time they get to Tucson, there won't be anything of Grant left."

"Oh... so the Queen is using Grant to walk around?"

"Yeah." Isabel sighed. "It was the one who kidnapped Laurie, and buried her, and shot at us in the woods that night. Grant had confused memories of all that."

"Okay, hang on just a second," Kyle said, and took the phone away from his face. "Tess, are you still on with Michael?"

"Maria, why?" Tess answered.

"Isabel got a positive ID on the Gandarium Queen's host."

"Yeah, they know - Sorenson."

"Okay." Kyle went back to Isabel. "Sorry, I just wanted to make sure the word was relayed. Guess you guys already thought of that."

"Yeah, it's alright," Isabel said. "Alex was dead tired from driving when he picked me up, so I took the wheel for a while, and we just switched back. We're past the Arizona line now."

"Okay, well, we've got a tip of our own," Kyle said. "A way to kill the Gandarium - hopefully it should work on the Queen too. Suffocate the thing - oxygen starvation."

The implications hit him a second before Isabel said them out loud. "That'll kill Grant too, won't it?"

"Yeah - um, sorry. I didn't think about it being somebody that any of us know. But - well, not to get too melodramatic about it, but it seems to be the Queen or us. There's no way that Tess or I can get safely out of the hive while it's alive." He considered. "Maybe there's a way to drive the Queen out of Grant without killing him."

"I wish I could believe that," Isabel muttered. "Okay, we'll do what we can. But I don't know how far ahead of us Grant is. We've lost him, Alex is just heading for the Dupree house in Tucson as quickly as he can."

"Okay. Keep safe, and tell Alex I said the same for him."

"Thanks, you too. Bye?"

"Bye." Kyle hung up the phone. Tess had finished talking with Michael by this point, and was looking at him, holding out a granola bar.

"Thanks." He took it and settled into a sitting position. "Any news from Michael?"

"He didn't want to talk too much. They're close to Laurie; staying at the family house, thanks to Maria's gambit with the deed to the house." Tess settled down across from Kyle.

"Okay, good for her," Michael said. "So are they ready for the Queen to arrive? She seems to know where she's got to go."

"It knows," Tess said. "Just because it's a queen doesn't make it a she. And yeah, Michael was preparing a trap already. I think he's working on how to fit in the asphyxiation angle now."

"Okay. I can't think of anything else we need to do but wait and eat."

"I could suggest a few." Tess took a deep breath. "Like talk - about us, and my big confession that left you speechless."

Kyle smiled slightly. "I guess I'm not speechless anymore. That was a really shitty trick to pull on Liz. Just imagine for a moment, if she had the means and motivation to do the same thing to you - to force you to choose between - between the person you loved and everything else you believed in, by tricking you?" Kyle's eyes fell. "I'm trying to understand where you were coming from, that you felt like you had to do this, but I'm not sure I'm in a spot where I can be okay with it. And I wasn't even the one you wronged. You need to tell Max and Liz, as soon as possible... well, as soon as we get out of this. Maybe you should figure out a way to make sure that they'll know, just in case we don't get out."

"You don't think this is the sort of thing that I get to confess over a cell phone?" Tess asked.

"I don't think you should distract them in the middle of a crisis like this. Or give them any reason why they might not want to save your life."

"Alright, I... I'll do it, as soon as we crawl out of here. I know it won't be easy, but I'm going to live up to that promise." Tess smiled. "And thank you - for caring, for doing everything that you've done to make sure that I live through this."

"I couldn't do any less," Kyle admitted.

"And - even if you're not entirely okay with my sordid past, could you find a way to tolerate me showing you just how much I care about you?"

Kyle snickered and scarfed down the last of his granola bar. "Hell, yeah!" Tess only just had time to take one last bite and swallow before Kyle was next to her, kissing the side of her face.

Things progressed quickly, both of them feeling a passion burning deep inside. As Kyle's fingers worked at the zipper of Tess' jeans, she moaned, deeply conflicted. "My darling, my love, I won't say no to you if this is really what you want, but - are you sure?"

"Why the hell not?" Kyle muttered. "This might be our last night on Earth, or any planet - reincarnation aside."

"No arguments." Tess was panting with her own excitement. "But if it's not - truly being with each other will change things for us. Especially considering my heritage."

Kyle realized that Tess was telling him about something serious. But no matter what darkness she had in her past, he couldn't back away because he wasn't certain what it would be like to tie his life to hers forever. He wasn't responsible for Tess' choices or happiness, but he didn't want to put her through an abandonment crisis again.

Plus, she looked so hot like this, shirt hanging from one arm, blonde curls falling over her eyes, half-shadowed in the reflected flashlights.

He backed away, but only far enough to tug her jeans away, an inch at a time.

#

It was hard to tell which brought him out of happy oblivion first, the phone ringing or the coughing.

He heard Tess coughing mostly, though his own throat was acting up a little. Confused and dazed by all that he'd been through, it took a while before he was able to reach into his pocket and bring out the phone. There wasn't much light - where was the bedside table? No, he wasn't in his room, or any room - what about flashlights? There was a glint of light, somewhere on the cave floor.

He answered the phone, coughed, and growled, "Who is it this time?"

"Your father."

A number of reactions ran through Kyle's head. Even though he'd made love to a girl when they were both trapped in a deadly alien cave, his father had managed to catch him in the aftermath - sort of. Then... "Damn it, I knew there was somebody I forgot to call, Dad. Sorry - I'm in a... a bit of trouble here." And he couldn't keep from coughing at that point.

"I know. Max called me just when I was starting to wonder when you'd be getting home. I'm out here with him and Liz, just above the hive."

"Okay." Kyle coughed, and realized that Tess didn't seem to be able to go without making a similar sound for more than a few seconds. The implications of that were starting to get through his brain. "It's worse than Max and Liz know. Something's just gone wrong with the air in here. Could be the alien rocks emitting a gas that we can't breathe."

"I'll talk to Liz. But no matter what, hang on as long as you can. We're waiting on news from Michael in Tucson."

"Give me a minute, there are a few things I need to take care of, but stay on the line, right?"

"Sure, Kyle, I'm here for both of you. If Tess wants to say something, just put her on."

Kyle smiled slightly as he stowed the phone, taking care not to hang up by accident, and checked on Tess. She seemed to be doing okay, except for the coughing, and she wasn't quite as awake as Kyle was. She did seem to have figured out that something was wrong with the air.

Without saying anything, Kyle checked on the flashlights and Tess began to dress. One flash had burnt out entirely, and the other had been knocked aside in their lovemaking. Kyle wondered if there had actually been sparks and other electric discharges - he didn't remember that detail, but somehow it would fit into what he had been aware of.

Once Tess was decent, (still showing some traces of their recent activity,) she reached out a hand, and Kyle passed her the flashlight so he could take two hands to pull on his own pants. "Where to?" she asked amidst coughs then, checking through her bag to see if anything with long-term value had been left astray.

"Back to where we started," Kyle muttered. "If we get a chance, that's probably the best way to get out safely - better than the new hole that Max and Liz dug." He coughed. "Now that they're actively trying to kill us, if Max wants to try to break down the walls again, I won't object to taking chances."

As they hurried towards that blocked opening, Kyle realized that Tess wasn't the person he needed to tell that to, and pulled out the cell phone again. "Dad, can I talk to Max for a minute?"

"He'll be back in a minute," Jim Valenti said. "Had to go and collect some rocks, just in case."

"Alright, let me know when he thinks he's got a pile big enough to try with. I'm not sure that Tess will be much help - she has to concentrate to do her thing, right? That'll be hard, coughing every two seconds."

"It's that bad, for her?" Jim asked, and Kyle grunted an affirmative. "Okay, well, stay back from the area. I'll try adding my pistol to Max's rocks."

"Of course, great idea." As they approached the vicinity of the cave opening, the air suddenly got a lot worse, foul-smelling and nauseous. Kyle realized that the two of them absolutely had to get out of this cavern in a matter of seconds, not minutes, or they'd die that quickly. But as Tess waved the flashlight around, trying to figure out what the new threat was, Kyle thought that they had one chance.

"Hold your fire!" he yelled into the phone. "Both of you!" And Kyle was charging through the blue matter that had sealed them both into the cavern, pulling Tess along with him. It was no longer solid, but a thickly clinging blue goo. Oh no, a small voice went in his head. This wasn't what he'd been counting on. He charged blindly on, but could feel the alien ooze covering him from head to toe, sealing him in - he couldn't breathe through it, couldn't open his eyes without the Gandarium blinding him, and that meant...

"Oooh, gross." As Kyle collapsed, somebody's hands gently rubbed the worst of the ooze off his face, as his own badly tainted fingers wouldn't have been able to do. That wasn't enough, but a little bit at a time water was applied to wash the residue away from his eyes, and Kyle looked up at Liz Parker, his saviour.

"Tess?" he croaked, got something slimy inside his mouth, and gagged. He tried to spit, but couldn't as long as his head was pointing up, so he turned over, and immediately felt goo oozing onto his forehead. His flesh crawled anew. But a steady rain was pouring over his whole body, and if he had enough time, that would wash away all trace of the Gandarium. "Tess?" he yelled again, carefully, after hocking out the contents of his mouth.

"She's over here, and she seems to be breathing okay," Jim called from behind him, and he spun around. "She may have just fainted - it's obviously been a trying day for both of you."

"Max, you have to do something for her," Kyle blurted out. He didn't feel any jealousy or frustration about Max Evans crouching next to the body of the girl he loved - he just needed somebody to make Tess better. But even if he was right that Tess still needed saving, what could Max do? His healing powers didn't work unless he could form a connection eye to eye, so Tess had to open her eyes...

Kyle crouched next to where Tess lay, and was suddenly struck by the sensation that he was playing Prince Charming to her Snow White. If this were really a fairy tale, he could wake her with a kiss, but there were still traces of blue slime on her lips, and even if they were scrubbed clean, Kyle wasn't sure he could overcome his revulsion of the Gandarium enough to lay one on her right there and then.

But, driven by some deep urge to connect with her again, Kyle reached out and rubbed her cheek with his thumb, wiping away another bit of Gandarium slime that had stuck there, cleaning off his thumb on the grass and then caressing her. And his breath caught as he spotted Tess blinking her eyes open and trying to prop herself up on her elbows.

"Tess, honey, are you alright?"

"Yeah, umm, yeah, I'm fine. Liz? Are Max and Liz here? I have something to tell them."

"I - I didn't really mean this soon, when I said that you needed to confess to them as soon as we were safe."

"Yes, come on, let's get somewhere safe," Jim said. "Unless there's something else we need to do out here."

"No, it's all been done," Max said. "The Gandarium nest is dead now. And it's a good thing that you were able to get out of the corpse."

"Then come back to our place," Tess said. "If that's okay, Valentis. Did you bring the truck, Jim? I think it might be better if Kyle and I rode in the flatbed, until we can clean ourselves off."

"Actually, I think if I go home now, I can keep my parents from realizing I was out all hours of the night," Liz said. "And catch some sleep. We'll talk later - after you two lovebirds have showered together."

"Liz!" Max exclaimed, sounding scandalized.

"What?" Liz giggled. "I was just thinking about what I'd want to do if it was you and I who got slimed, honey."

#

They gathered for a late lunch around the Valenti's table. Thankfully, there were enough chairs for five.

"After Max and I said goodnight," Tess was saying, in a quiet voice, "I went back to the Crashdown, climbed up the fire escape, and hid at the corner of it where I could just see onto your balcony, Liz, without being easy to spot myself. I waved a signal to Zan, that he'd been waiting for, to start telling you how the future was changed and he couldn't stay here in our time anymore. That was when you asked him to dance, right, Liz?" Liz nodded slightly. "I didn't want to mess up the timing that we'd agreed on, because that might give away that he wasn't the person you thought he was, so I had to make him disappear before the dance was over. I could keep you from seeing him, hearing his footsteps, or even realizing that you were touching him, but you'd realize that something weird was going on if you bumped into him. Luckily Zan was on the ball enough to stay clear once he'd slipped out of your arms. He said goodbye, wished me luck, and drove off, back to New York. I think that he died a few days after he made it back." She took a deep breath. "So - how much trouble am I in, guys?"

"Wow." Max took a deep breath. "I - well, I'm surprised, and upset that you could do something like this, Tess, but..." He let out a long sigh and looked at Liz. "You were interfering in my life, for your own selfish reasons - you do realize that now, right? As much as you might have tried to convince yourself at the time that your agenda was best for me, best for the four of us, all of that was rationalizing."

"Yeah, I know that now," Tess told him. "And that even if I did have selfless motives, that wouldn't have excused the means that I used."

"No, it wouldn't," Max agreed. "But I guess that I don't consider myself the primary wronged party here. It was Liz that you deceived, and Liz's feeling that you toyed with, so - I'm willing to follow her lead."

"Great, put it all on me, huh?" Liz teased, and took a long swallow from her glass of punch. "Well, like Max - I'm mad to think that you could possibly have done something like this, no matter how you felt about Max or about me. But on the other hand - it seems somehow silly to really censure you about something from back in October. You and I, we started over on Valentine's Day, and I do think that we're in a good place now. Would you agree?"

"Yeah, I guess, I mean - you might not be one of my favourite people on the planet... then again..." Tess shrugged. "But I'd never do something like that to you now, and not just because I've accepted that you're Max's girlfriend, and that you're one of Kyle's best friends. And the same goes for you too, Max. I've sworn off playing my own game, ever since Kyle - showed me just how wrong I'd been about so many things."

"That's it," Max said, nodding. "You've turned over a new leaf, because of Kyle. So - if there's any karmic debt for what you did wrong before, I think it's Kyle you need to repay it to, not to Liz or me." He looked over at Liz. "I think that I want to talk with Liz in private about that, before I give you your final sentence. But there's one thing I want to say now. Deceit can be a tough habit to break - just the fact that you kept this from us all for so long tells me you have a problem with telling your friends the truth."

"In fairness, it's one thing to actively lie, and another to not come clean about a guilty secret," Liz allowed.

"Yes, but still, I was thinking of something like a probation," Max said. "There's too many things that we all have to lie about to outsiders, but when it's just us, Tess, the people who are in on the big secret - do you think that you could vow to speak only the truth? For - I don't know, for two months?"

"Wow, that's a tall order for anybody, Max," Tess muttered. Max just nodded slightly. "I - I'll do my best, seriously. And - and if I backslide, then as soon as I can I'll go back and set the record straight."

"Are you sure that the rest of us are up for this, Max?" Liz asked with a smile. "Hearing the absolute truth according to Tess for two months?"

"If it gets too annoying, I might cut it short," Max said. "And I that's enough talking about past crimes and misdemeanours."

"Okay," Jim agreed, and there was a short pause. "So, when are the other four getting back from Tucson?"

"Alex, Isabel, and Maria should be back by tomorrow afternoon," Liz said. "Michael needs to stay a few days more, to take care of Laurie and make sure that her family can't take advantage of her again. He really does feel like she's part of his family."

"I'm just glad that he was able to get the Queen into that bomb shelter," Tess muttered. "It's sad about Grant, but - well, I don't think there was any way we could have saved him, no matter what."

"Probably not," Max agreed. "Isabel's going to be hit worse than any of us - she might try to deny it, but she really liked Grant."

#

Tess turned to Kyle once they were alone. "So - where do things stand between the two of us?"

Kyle reached out and cupped the side of her head with his hand. "I - I understand what you meant about things changing between us now - it's nothing like anything I've ever felt with anybody else. I'm not sure I'm ready for it, but I can't say I'm sorry about what we did, back there in the nest."

"Yeah, I think I feel the same way about it," Tess said, smiling that little, sweet smile that he only saw on her face when they were alone.

"I'm not sure that we're going to be able to live according to my Dad's ground rules anymore."

"Really?" Tess lifted her eyebrows in surprise. "Remember, he said he wasn't going to stop us from making love in his house, just didn't want us sleeping in the same bed all night."

"Yeah, but after being with you, it's going to be way too hard to leave your loving arms and get to sleep on that lonely couch," Kyle complained.

Tess grinned and kissed him hard.

Neither of them knew when the envelope had been slipped into the Valenti's mailbox. The mailman never even used the box anymore, insisting on squeezing everything under the door.

This message was written in Max's neat, bold handwriting, addressed to Tess Harding, and marked 'official Judiciary document.'

"Tess,

"In addition to the integrity stipulation that you have already agreed to, We sentence you to mandatory community rehabilitation sessions during your probation. These will be held in the format of 'Girl's night/afternoon/day' events, to be attended by Liz Parker, Maria DeLuca, Isabel Evans, and possibly other invitees yet to be named. Ms Parker will contact you regarding scheduling.

"The following acts of contrition and restitution shall also be required of you. Since it is the determination of this court that entering into a relationship with a Mister Kyle Valenti has been key to the progress of your rehabilitation thus far, restitution is being redirected from the wronged party of your confessed misdeed to Mister Valenti.

"Perform three foot rubs, three back rubs, and two full-body massages, (each 30 minutes in duration at minimum,) for Mister Valenti at a time convenient for you both.

"Prepare and serve him breakfast in bed twice.

"Allow him the activity of his choice for date night three times.

"Allow him his choice of television program to watch together five times.

"Treat him to dinner at his choice of restaurant, once.

"Allow him the option for a 'night out with the boys' four times.

"Arrange a weekend getaway, (costs to be shared evenly,) with an itinerary of his choice.

"Arrange two 'hot night in' evenings, with home-cooked dinner and movies to his choice.

"Wash his car three times.

"Indulge an intimate fantasy of his choice.

"Follow his every command for one hour, at a time of his choice, in a non-crisis situation.

"Submit as his love slave for one night.

"Play two games of strip poker with him.

"We hope that you will be able to complete the terms of this probation within three months, however, if an extension is required, petition can be filed with the court when one week remains in that period."

The paper was signed with 'Liz Parker, victim' and 'Zan, posthumous King of the planet Antar.' Tess was laughing out loud by the time she got to that point.

"You - you don't mind?" he asked, tracing down some of the last items on the list.

"Max and Liz actually had me worried," she admitted. "These penances will be **fun.** And I can see that somebody put thought into selecting things that would help jolt me out of my old selfish habits, and remind me that doing nice things for somebody else can be its own reward."

"Oh," Kyle said, and Tess planted a kiss onto his lips.

"So, is there anything on this list that you'd like to start with, right now?" she asked him, a big grin on her face.


End file.
